Art of War
by DarkLux
Summary: He screams, but hears nothing. The familiar buzz of TV static is gone, as are the happy chirps from the starly that nest outside his window. His mouth tastes like ashes, Will realizes soon, when his body regains feeling. His mouth tastes like ashes, and there's something dripping down the side of his face. It's hard to breathe. Pokémon Platinum Nuzlocke.
1. Fire (and smoke)

This is the story of a Pokémon Platinum nuzlocke run. It contains depictions of violence due to the whole theme of the story, which is, as you can probably tell, war.

I will add warnings at the start of every chapter, but the violence in the first chapter is the heaviest one, at least in the three chapters I have written so far. All the same BE WARNED that there's violence and possible depictions of same-sex couples and transgender characters, depending on how it would fit the story when those characters are reached.

 **Warnings:** Violence

* * *

 **001\. Fire (and smoke)**

 _"Pokémon are by our side, always. I hope you will understand the meaning of those words."_

Professor Rowan is smiling, soothing.

And then the ceiling comes crashing down.

Will doesn't know how long he's out, can't quite pinpoint if he was even out at all. It's dark, but there's still light, somewhere, when he opens his eyes. To his left maybe. Probably his right. His head throbs to the thundering pulse of his heart and he breathes in to quell his burning lungs. Smoke comes in, unbidden, and Will coughs it out in a suffocating curtain that wraps around his head and gets into his eyes.

He tries to move his arms, then fights to get his knees under him to push himself up. His whole body is stuck, an impossible weight pinning him down to the carpet.

He screams, but hears nothing. The familiar buzz of TV static is gone, as are the happy chirps from the starly that nest outside his window. His mouth tastes like ashes, Will realizes soon, when his body regains feeling. His mouth tastes like ashes, and there's something dripping down the side of his face. It's hard to breathe. There's something over him, but he can't roll over to see what it is.

"Will!" The voice pierces through the high-pitched ringing in his ears, dull, but close.

He tries to yell back, but he's not sure if he does or if he just screams it in his head.

Sound slowly returns to Will's world, as sharp pain races up his side and he cries out in his pain.

"Sorry! I'll… I'll move it away, okay?"

The voice is still unrecognizable from under the— _rubble. There's rubble in his room, why is there rubble in his room?_ —Will panics when he identifies the terror clinging to the voice.

There are other noises. Whirring, then screams and loud, endless popping cracks. Will is suddenly hyper-aware of everything, senses enhanced with fear and urgency.

A plank of wood twists slightly, just enough so Will can free his left hand. Will drags it toward his chest, wincing. Something else moves, and the weight above him pushes him further down. The searing pain on his side startles him into action.

"No, no! Don't move that!" He's sure he says it, this time, and Emery, — _it's Emery, of course it's Emery, who else could it be?_ — curses and lets whatever he was holding fall back down. It hurts, but not as much as it did when it moved.

"Will, I'mna move this thing up. I think you can come out from underneath."

His voice is nasal, like he's being crying. Will's chest clenches painfully, dread washing over him. He wants to ask what happened, but it freaks him out, whatever it might have been.

"I can't breathe."

He doesn't know why he says it, even if it's true. It doesn't make breathing any easier, in fact he's kind of sure he's just made it worse, and Emery's careful movements become faster and clumsier, causing more pain.

A hand grabs him by the shoulder and tugs. Will cries out, but the hand doesn't stop. Then there are two hands, and Emery is pulling him up, grappling an arm under his arms and hauling him away from the mass of wood and concrete he was trapped under.

The light is coming from above them. Will looks over when he realizes the beams pinning him down had once been his own roof. The wall to his left is nowhere to be found.

Emery's shaking hand is covered in blood.

The cracks in the air become louder and Emery's breath hitches.

"They're coming, they're coming." Emery whispers under his breath. He looks around, beyond the inexistent wall, and bounces on the balls of his feet, desperate to move.

His face is grimy, clean only where tear tracks smeared the muck away. Emery shoves something into Will's hands and drags the other boy out of the room.

The hallway is chaos. Sections of the floor are charred. The whole right side of the house is missing. Emery is talking under his breath to the beat of his jittering hands. Something about an explosion. The air is thick with black smoke. Will suddenly realizes something is missing.

" _Mom?!_ " He wrenches his arm out of Emery's grip, starting to the living room. It's on fire. Jumpy, his mom's kangaskhan, is burning, feeding the flames that consume his house, and unmoving. He can see his mom's hand right behind the sofa. "Mom!"

Emery grabs him again, grunting at the force he has to use to keep his friend away. "Will, stop! Come on!" It's only because Emery is taller that the struggle gives him the upper hand. Will wrestles with all his might against him, bellowing to be let go. "Will, we have to go!"

The cracks are growing louder very quickly, and Emery finally pulls Will away.

Will is crying, now, looking around them at the people lying on the ground with blood slathered on their backs and necks. There's a group of people in uniforms next to a pile of bodies that look like half their limbs were blown off. A few paces ahead, the sign announcing "Twinleaf Town-Fresh and Free!" is impossible to see due to the smoke.

If it's even there anymore, that is. When Will looks around, it's clear that half the town is gone.

Emery is shaking, wild eyes shooting from the burnt grass to the snow-covered, burning trees. He pulls Will to the side, sneaking into the forest that surrounds the town. There, they can breathe. It's a shallow, painful action that sears their lungs and makes them cough.

"A bomb went off." Emery provides shakily. He grabs Will's wrist, tugging him until he starts walking again. "I-I have to find my dad. They-They're—"

Will's brain doesn't really register the words. He's too busy looking at the bodies, ears ringing from the gunshots.

"Shh, shh!" Emery twists around, and Will allows him to pull him behind the large pine tree they used as base to play hide-and-seek just last week.

Men and women garbed in the bright red uniform Will can't recognize are standing in a line. About half have shotguns, the others stand behind giant pokémon that barely register as nidokings and scythers. Will and Emery's neighbors are also in a line facing the soldiers, eyes wide open and weaponless. Mr. Royce is crying. A soldier comes over to silence him, but his sniffles only increase until they can reach the boys' ears.

The soldier is angry. He grabs Mr. Royce by the hair and pulls him to the front of the line, then pushes on his head until he's kneeling down. The soldier presses his shotgun to Mr. Royce's head, turns to the line of onlookers and pulls the trigger.

Will cries out. His shoulders tense and he flinches, his legs reeling back until his back hits the bark of another tree. Tears prick at the back on his eyes again, his teeth clatter together, hand flying to his mouth.

( _RedRedRedRedRedRedRed_ ).

One of the female soldiers turns in their general direction and visibly barks out an order, one of the men turns too, and Emery's breath hitches.

"Come on, come on, come on." The boy chants, but doesn't move until the third time, legs springing over to grab Will and then running through the pain clawing at their legs and ribs and heads.

A child shrieks behind them and there's a sudden slice of the air. The child doesn't shriek again.

The red beam of a pokémon being retrieves glows at their backs, then there's a gunshot, and a bullet whizzes by Will's head. Emery starts to the other side, then Will changes their direction again when he turns and sees the soldier aiming at Emery's back.

Suddenly there's tall grass in front of them, and Will halts forcefully when he sees a panicked bidoof snarling at them.

"Other side," he manages to bite out. He doesn't make a move to follow through his suggestion, but Emery seems to be in agreement, because he turns them around and runs in the opposite direction.

Will doesn't know if the soldier is still following them, if he freed his scyther again so hunt down their heads, but he doesn't see anyone in red as they sprint to Lake Verity. The smell of death attacks their noses when they pass in front of the town and they visibly pale.

Will wants to stop. It's hard to breathe. His legs feel like lead, his head has long since exploded in relentless pain. He keeps going only because Emery won't let go of his wrist.

The entrance to Lake Verity smells like wet rock and only slightly of singed grass. There's something like a camp ahead of them, a few tents pitched up around a bonfire. At the slightest hint of red peeking from inside the biggest tent, Will and Emery both whimper and pull each other toward the trees to their right.

Emery is still speaking fast under his breath, eyes shooting in every direction while he goes deeper into the woods. There isn't a clear path to follow, but in his fright, Emery seems to know exactly where they need to go, so Will lets himself be guided under the shroud of the trees.

They finally settle under one big tree, right behind an overgrown bush that hides them from sight, even though they can still see a hint of the camp.

"There's—There's blood on your face." Emery says suddenly. He reaches out and Will flinches back.

"There's blood on your hand." His words are slurred, mimicking the way his vision blurs for a second before it clears back up.

Emery locks-on to his hand, turning it and staring, suddenly quiet. Will leans down on the grass, hugging the bag Emery shoved into his arms before they left the house. He can't feel most of the right side of his body, but he thinks maybe that's a good thing because at least it doesn't hurt anymore. The side of his face reeks of raw iron and earth, but now that he's not moving, the pounding in his head is quick to ease until it's only a dull pressure on the back of his brain.

The sky is orange and dark blue. Will can tell from what he can see over the tops of the trees. It must be night then, or nearing it. He can't tell if the orange is from the sun setting or if the fires in Twinleaf as still burning. His eyes sting and he wants to close them but he's scared the next time he opens them this place will be on fire, too.

Will huddles only a little closer to Emery, just enough to get some sense of warmth. The snow pressing against his elbow makes him realize he's not wearing his jacket, only a thin shirt that is supposed to be warm, but isn't.

He shudders, and his eyes close against his will.

He wakes for a few seconds in the middle of the night, when four small paws crawl on his chest and tiny hands hold his cheek, warm fur nuzzling his neck. He breathes in, confused, until he hears Emery's snore next to him, and he falls back into sleep.

 **{…}**

There's a camera there.

A big one, on the shoulder of a man who's sweating through his shirt even in the cold.

Will tries to focus on something other than the man, but it's hard. He's wearing red, bright and distracting.

"—fine." Another man, now, kneeling next to him. He stares into his eyes, looking concerned and stern, which is weird, and then turns to yell something over his shoulder. The man's hair is blue. Will likes blue, because it's not red.

" _What?"_ That's what he means to ask, but he's sure it comes out like an incoherent blather and not an actual word.

The man with blue hair turns back to him. "My name is Cyrus. You and chimchar are fine."

Will has no idea what Cyrus is talking about, but he decides that he sounds comforting enough, so he nods his head and then whimpers because that hurt. A hand touches his face and now he's looking at a woman.

"Can you tell me where you live, honey?"

She looks tired, but she's wearing a lab coat. Will figures that's good. Doctors wear lab coats. So she is obviously a doctor. He looks to the side, and another person with a lab coat is carrying Emery away. Will is okay with that. Doctors are good. They're helping Emery.

Will blinks before he remembers the doctor lady asked him a question and he should probably have an answer. He struggles, hand covered in blood hovering above his head before pointing to the way he and Emery came from. Maybe.

"Over there…?"

The doctor looks at Cyrus and whispers something before turning back to him. Cyrus hooks an arm behind Will's back and another under his knees, then lifts him up. The man with the camera follows everything almost eagerly.

"All right." Says the doctor, standing to keep eye contact with Will. "What's the name of your chimchar?"

She reaches to his chest as they start moving. He looks down because, seriously, why do people think he has a chimchar? A small orange lump is sleeping on his stomach and chest, which would explain why it felt so heavy. The lump looks up, its fur ruffled and clumped with dirt.

Ah. Yes, that would do it.

"Zuzu?" Will doesn't even know, really. He doesn't know a lot of things at the moment.

But the doctor smiles and promises he and Zuzu and his friend are going to be okay. Will looks around and sees all the people in red uniforms lying on the ground. The grass is not on fire, here, but it stinks of poison.

Cyrus steps into a van and places Will on one of the gurneys. Another man is immediately on him, cleaning the muck out of his face. Will flinches and moves his head back, trying to get away.

"Whoa, there, buddy. It's all right. You have a nasty cut there, though, so I need you to stay still." Says the guy without a coat.

Will moves further back when the man tries to push him back into the bed, growling and punching at the man's hand. The van screeches and Will is thrown out of the gurney and against a wall. Coatless Guy hisses in pain and rolls his eyes, kneeling so he can grab at Will again.

A scream from outside, and the van is smashed again, denting the side with Emery's gurney in it. Will whimpers again, hands covering his ears, only leaving them when Coatless Guy makes a third attempt to get a hold of him.

"Really, Jeremy?" the doctor lady asks from somewhere outside Will's field of vision. Coatless Guy blanches and mutters an apology, making some room for her to approach. Will looks over his shoulder to see the other doctor get up from his place between the gurneys to move Emery into his arms and away from the damaged wall of the van.

"See? You can't reason with him, Sarah, he's not listening!" Coatless Guy—Jeremy—insists.

The doctor, Sarah, shushes him, her hands gently reaching for Will's face. "It's okay, sweetie. We're taking you to Sandgem Town. There could be some more trouble, so we're staying down here. Is that all right?"

Will nods. She smiles.

A pink, round pokémon comes up from behind Sarah, smiling down at Will. Zuzu jumps from the pokémon's neck, walking over until he's clinging to Will's chest, where the boy quickly wraps his arms around him.

" _My tummy hurts._ "

Will's head snaps down to look at the pokémon. He regrets it immediately, but the wave of dizziness that washes over him is small compared to his shock.

"Wha—?"

Zuzu also looks up at him, large black eyes wide, head tilted to the side.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Sarah asks. Will hears his mom's voice echoing the word inside his head and his grip on Zuzu tightens. We wants to tell her his name, so she'll stop calling him that.

"He talked." His mouth is still not up to par, apparently.

Jeremy looks at him like Will just went insane, but Sarah only smiles further. She pats his hair, puts an arm around his shoulders, and pulls him toward her just in time for the van to whirl and halt forcefully again. Jeremy holds both of their shoulders, keeping them from tumbling to the other side of the van.

"Of course he did, honey." Sarah says after a second, wind knocked out of her from the force of the jerk. She looks at chansey, her smile brittle. "Mimi, please sing for our young man, here?"

The chansey opens her mouth, and Will is out like a light.

 **{…}**

The next time Will wakes up, there's a ceiling over his head. Zuzu the chimchar is sitting peacefully next to him, staring blankly somewhere behind Will. Will groans, fingers lightly touching the bandage wrapped around his forehead. The yellow lights above them flicker, but Zuzu seems unaffected. His orange fur is still dirty, but much less so than it was before.

"Will, you're awake!" Will can't sit up, but he doesn't need to. Emery's face comes into view only a second later, bruised and smudged with dirt, but mostly unharmed. One of his arms is bandaged and in a sling, but he's still using it to hold up a small, blue pokémon that is struggling to get out of his grip. "You've been out for days!"

The blue pokémon jumps from Emery's arms, hurrying toward Zuzu and pushing the chimchar's head with a blue fin.

Will has just enough sense to pick up Zuzu and cradle him to his chest and Emery flushes a deep red, pinching his pokémon's cheek.

"Where are we?" Will asks. He looks around. He's in a futon, not an actual bed, so he doesn't have a very good view, but there are people all round them, mostly quiet, their eyes sunken as parents hug their children close. There's a small TV in the corner, and older adults and teenagers huddle around it.

"The pokémon center in Sandgem. They're using them as bunkers or something." Emery hesitates, glancing at the television and back. He opens his mouth, then closes it, uncharacteristically unsure. "I wanna go find my dad."

Will remembers, vaguely. He also remembers that Emery's dad is working on a whole separate island. Will is not very good with geography, but he's sure that's it's nowhere near them.

"Okay," Because what else do you say? Will would want to find his dad, too, if he had one.

"You could come with me—us!" Emery corrects with a glance to the piplup. There are dark bags under his eyes, but Emery's smile slowly begins to build up again. "My dad's strong, he'll help us!"

There's something almost frantic about the way he says it, like he's fighting to believe it himself. His free hand clutches Will's shoulder so hard it hurts, but it's a good kind of pain, a grounding force in the ocean that has become his brain, so Will doesn't pull away.

"Maybe. Can't move, though."

"I can wait!" Emery says, bouncing. Piplup puffs up his chest. Will manages a squint, which he quickly directs at his friend. "Dude, I can _totally_ wait!"

A man clears his throat, and Will startles. Zuzu and Emery's piplup look up and squeal.

"Henry?" Emery finally relaxes his painful hold and follows his pokémon's gaze.

The man is old, early sixties probably, and wearing the tattered remains of an elegant vest. Despite the state of his clothes, the man himself looks mostly unrumpled. It's a nice change from the screams of terror from Twinleaf and the unsettling desolation that clings to this room.

It's so nice Will is almost disturbed by it.

"What'cha want, gramps?"

The man is unaffected my Emery's innate rudeness, but the girl with him snorts into the sleeve of her pink jacket. Zuzu and Henry seem eager to jump them both, but both pokémon take a look at their trainers and stay back.

"First of all, you should be more respectful to your elders." The man says, huffing slightly. Henry puffs his chest out, too, sending a small glare to his trainer.

' _Rowan'_ Zuzu whispers at his friend's reaction. Will's eyes bore into the back of Zuzu's head before the boy sighs and runs a hand through his face. He must be tired. This is ridiculous.

"He's Professor Rowan!" The girl says. She's not bruised, doesn't even have dirt in her hair, and her grin is the brightest thing either of the boys have seen since the attack to Twinleaf. "And I'm Dawn! We were just curious about those pokémon you have."

Will is staring at his chimchar again, confused and scared of what's happening. Next to him, Emery's eyes are wide, shifting between Henry and the professor.

Rowan places a hand on the Dawn's shoulder, which seems to sober her up to some extent. He looks at Will, then back at Emery. "Those pokémon do seem rather familiar, and I don't see any pokéballs on you. Did you perhaps find them around Lake Verity?"

Zuzu turns away from the Professor and instead stares into Will's eyes. The boy cringes slightly at the hidden reprimand in the man's voice, shrinking away from him and the girl. Zuzu grabs Will's sleeve with his paw, almost melting into Will's body as he tries to bury his head into Will's injured side.

' _Wanna stay with you'_

"Why? Aren't you the Professor's?" It's only a half-hearted whisper, but Zuzu only burrows further into his shirt and Professor Rowan snaps his head toward them. Will flinches, and Emery quickly grabs Will's arm as if he's ready to jump between him and Rowan at the first hint of violence.

Professor Rowan doesn't stop staring, but he visibly tries to look less threatening, loosening his shoulders from their strict stiffness and kneeling down next to Will's futon.

"They were with us when we woke up!" Emery tries to defend, though he falters slightly when Professor Rowan finally tears his eyes away from the other boy to look at him. "But… but they told us they found us at Lake Verity…"

Emery drums his fingers on Will's hip, his right foot already bouncing with the need to move around. Rowan doesn't smile. Instead, he returns to look intently at Will.

"Am I correct to assume you are from Twinleaf Town?" Rowan asks.

Will can only just barely register the question before Emery spits, "Yeah, so?"

The blond gives another sideways glance to the television, but Will still can't see the image, just the people around it. Dawn bites out a gasp, and Professor Rowan shushes her.

"They seem attached to you already, the pokémon." Professor Rowan continues, clearly willing to cut Emery some slack. "How would you feel about keeping them?" Though he's asking both of them, his eyes are readily on Will's.

Zuzu and Henry both squeal while the boys merely stare at the man in disbelief.

"But Professor! Those pokémon are hard to replace and your research involves them specifically!" Dawn cries. Her hand grabs onto the Professor's sleeve, but is forced to release it when the man turns to look mournfully at her.

"The research is gone, child. It would be best to let these young men take them."

"But—!"

"Why don't you go look for your father, Dawn?"

The girl looks put out at being treated like that by the professor, but she obeys, her bright smile gone and replaced by a disappointed pout.

When she leaves, Professor Rowan gets off his knees, instead sitting on the concrete and letting Henry climb up to his shoulder.

"What would your names be, boys?" It feels odd, being called a young man and then merely as a boy, but Will is having a hard time focusing again, so it could be that, instead.

"I'm Emery Black and he's… William Pierce…?" Emery never has never introduced him as William before, but then again, he has never truly had to introduce him to anybody, and certainly nobody as important as Professor Rowan.

"Will," He says quietly. "Just Will."

 **{E N D - 0 0 1}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 1; Deaths| 0**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Chimchar  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 7


	2. Put Your Weapons Down

**Same warning as last time: Violence.**

Also, yes, all the titles will be in this format.

* * *

 **002\. Put Your Weapons Down (I'll fight for you)**

When Emery said he could wait, Will had not believed him.

Now, he's not sure if he does. Technically, Emery hasn't left yet. But he usually isn't at the pokémon center either. Will is not sure how, or _why_ he even does it, but Emery sneaks out of the bunker and away from the pokémon center before returning each night, he and Henry looking more tired and dirtier than the night before. When he asks, Emery says that Henry was growing stressed, but to Will it looks like it's Emery who is stressed.

The trips outside are not helping, though, whatever the case is. Emery returns with scratches more often than not, then refuses to ask for help from a nurse because he knows he's not supposed to be outside, he knows that there are other people in there who need medicine more than he does.

Will can't really move yet, so all he can do is watch while his friend becomes edgier, his hands shaking and waking up from sleep with nightmares.

Will has nightmares, too, so he doesn't feel okay pressuring Emery about his own.

Zuzu seems to be content right where they are. Will doesn't know how often Professor Rowan let the pokémon out to enjoy some air, but Zuzu isn't bothered by the cement-gray walls and dingy lighting the basement of the Center offers.

Will has also grown tired of watching television. In the two weeks they have been here, all that's on are images of towns and cities rising on in fire and smoke and utter pandemonium. Once in a while, they cut to the footage Will remembers the cameraman shot, of him being carried away from Lake Verity by a man named Cyrus, then they show interview after interview of the man pledging to protect Sinnoh. When those interviews come on, Will does take a seat in front of the television and soaks everything in like a sponge, then he tunes out most news relating to the fight that is brewing outside.

Zuzu leans on Will's uninjured side while the boy rests on his assigned futon. Will has to resist not to scratch any of his injuries. None of the wounds are completely closed, exactly, but the stitches have managed to remain clean and the doctor and the few nurses tell him that has saved him a lot of pain.

"Are you really from Twinleaf?"

Will opens his eyes to see Dawn sitting on the futon next to his. Her turtwig Mei is standing next to her, head cocked to one side like he has seen Zuzu do a few times. He's not surprised by her question. He has seen the images of the aftermath plastered all over the news. Even the adults try not to look at him after the first time the video of Cyrus rescuing him is played back at full volume.

"Yeah."

"Oh," Dawn says. She looks like she had counted on the answer being no instead. She looks back to where her dad is talking to a woman using her lab coat as a blanket, looking guilty even though no one has said anything to her. She bites her lip and looks back at him. "How old are you? And Emery?"

"Elev—twelve." Will corrects as he remembers his birthday was only a few days ago. "And Emery's fourteen."

"I'm right in the middle!" Will doesn't know how she can sound so happy and excited when he only wishes he could be warm enough to sleep for a couple of years.

"Oh, that's nice." He feels a little guilty that he sounds so uninterested, but he has been trouble changing the tone of his voice lately.

Dawn sighs, looks back at her dad, and leaves him alone.

"It's okay, she'll try talking to you again." Says Zuzu. He sounds more and more confident every time he talks to Will, and Will has gotten used to the voice that really, _really_ shouldn't be there.

Will has to be going crazy, but he doesn't want to ask a doctor in case they try to take away the pain meds that are the only thing that let him get up from time to time. So he just nods at his chimchar and scratches him behind an ear.

That night, Emery comes into the Center with a starly. He looks happy, though his new pokémon makes enough noise to wake half the room.

"What are _you_ looking at, boy?" The starly squeaks out when Emery sits across from him.

"Nothing," Will mumbles automatically. Starly quiets immediately, staring at him, before he starts to ramble about the little idiot blond that caught him.

Emery is blissfully unaware, though he gives Will an odd look at his mumble. He looks at Zuzu, then looks suspiciously over to Professor Rowan who never seems to leave the darkest corner of the bunker, The man is looking steadily at them, dirty papers and pen in his hand.

"I don't like how he looks at you," Emery says, apparently forgetting that he had a plan to go beg the man for a pokémon before the attacks. "He's _always_ looking at you."

Will thinks that's a gross over exaggeration considering Emery is not even there most of the day and doesn't see the Professor writing on his notes with almost reverential fervor. It's either that, or he's eating his share of cheese and bread with his assistants and Dawn. He never even looks at the news.

"No, he's not!" He shushes his own voice, but Will knows the pout still slips through.

"I'm just saying." Emery says with a frown. It's uncommon for Will to disagree with anything he says. "Anyway, let's have a battle!"

"A… battle?" Will repeats.

"Yeah. Henry and Napoleon against Zuzu."

Will hesitates, looking over to look at Zuzu and see what he thinks. Though he says nothing, Zuzu seems to perk up at the idea, so Will tries to calm the thundering beat of his heart and agrees.

"Yes! Okay, come on upstairs, then. The doctors cleared an area so pokémon could get some exercise. We can fight there!"

This has been the brightest Will was seen Emery since before he picked Will out from under the rubble of his home, so he forces himself to smile and struggles to sit up. Zuzu is there soon, using his shoulder and head to push him up.

"Is Master okay?"

Will winces. "Not 'master'. Just Will."

"Dude, are you talking to yourself?" Emery sits down then, hand on Will's shoulder. "Are you sure? If you're not feeling well we can—"

"No, it's okay. I was… I'm fine."

Emery looks skeptic, but shrugs noncommittally and helps Will to get on his feet. The blond supports most of Will's weight as they climb up the stairs, Zuzu clambering over and perching on Emery's shoulder. Then Emery leads Will to another, smaller room, zigzagging through the hallways as if he knows them like the back of his hand.

"I can stand," Will confirms when Emery volunteers to go look for a chair.

"If you say so." Emery grins, running at full speed to the other side of the room. "Napoleon, you go first!"

The starly rolls his eyes and flies to stand in front of Zuzu, who's already looking ready to fight. It's a change if Will has ever seen one, most of the time Zuzu just stares off into space and comments every time he thinks Will might be listening.

"Do you wanna go first?" Emery yells unnecessarily, like he's trying to be heard over the cheers of an invisible crowd.

"I don't really know…" But Will doesn't even finish before Zuzu launches himself against Napoleon, dangerous claws glinting as he scratches the starly across the face. "Wha—"

Napoleon growls and lunges at Zuzu thrusting his beak into Zuzu's stomach. Zuzu gets up with only slight difficulty, leering at the other pokémon.

"Zuzu, you don't have to."

"It's okay." Zuzu assures Will, not looking away from the starly. Then he jumps with enough force to startle an airborne Napoleon and uses sharp claws to scratch at Napoleon's stomach.

There's blood on Zuzu's paw, and Emery quickly retrieves his pokémon into a pokéball. Will realizes just then there was no way Emery could have gotten pokéballs from anywhere near them.

"This isn't over yet, Will!" Emery yells again.

From his resting place inside Emery's shoulder bag, Henry peeks out, his face covered in red sauce telling of a cheri berry. He jumps out either way, standing in front of Zuzu. Will is not sure if it's because Henry clearly ate too much, but the piplup is slow and only growls while Zuzu moves around swiftly, scratching until Henry's legs give out.

Emery runs over and picks up his pokémon when it's clear the battle is over. Zuzu swirls back around, running toward Will until he's holding on to his trainer's leg. Behind him, Emery bounces over to Will with a small, hesitant smile on his face.

"That was great! It's the first time you battle, right?"

"I… I guess." Will is not sure it can be called battling when he gave absolutely no orders to his pokémon, but Emery looks a little too happy for someone who has just lost at… anything, really.

"Oh! Right, I have something for you!" Emery says suddenly. He rummages inside his bag for about two seconds and pulls out a blue wool-lined jacket, practically chucking it at him. "I think it's going to be a too big, but it's better than just a shirt."

Will grabs it before his brain can process that this is _impossible_ , and swiftly puts it over his shoulders, sliding his arms through the sleeves.

It _is_ a little too big. The sleeves cover his knuckles and the hem falls just below the fly of his pants, but it's cozy and warm and everything this place isn't. He zips it up and buries his mouth and nose in the wool that stretches all around the collar and breathes in the heat.

"Thanks." Will says, voice muffled "Shouldn't… you get, uh, Napoleon checked out?"

"Oh, yeah. Can you go back down by yourself?"

Will hesitates because he knows he'll probably get lost in the hallways, but Zuzu tugs at his pant leg and when Will looks down, Zuzu nods. "I know the way." It's like he can read Will's thoughts.

"Ah, yeah, I think I can manage."

"Cool, I'll see you soon!" And with that Emery bounds down the hall and disappears behind a door.

{…}

It's the middle of the night, but Will is awake again, not even able to pretend he's sleeping. His thoughts wander in dreams, and the last thing he wants is to wake everyone up with his screams, specially after the news of the fight that broke out in Jubilife and the series of explosions that keep going off all over Oreburgh. Zuzu is dead to the world and Will doesn't have the heart to wake him so he has some sort of company. Emery is also asleep, his back to Will, and he knows it's the first time he has slept through the night. Maybe having Napoleon with him makes him feel safer.

Will has long since realized his own shirt is red. It's a muted, dark red that looks nothing like the uniforms those soldiers wore, and it also lacks the rusted hue of dried blood, so Will is surprisingly okay with it. Still, he covers himself with the blue jacket and thinks about cream-colored walls and the smell of cinnamon buns baking in the oven.

"Can you understand your chimchar?" Will startles, sitting up so fast the wound at his side twinges painfully. Staring down at him is Professor Rowan, stern as always. "When he speaks, of course. Perhaps you can understand your friend's pokémon, too?"

Will fidgets, looking down and away. He remembers Emery's words and decides that he'll have to wake him up, if the Professor is too threatening. "No. No, sir."

Rowan doesn't smile, he never smiles. "I can understand them, too."

Will's eyes snap in his direction once more, wide and inquisitive. The professor looks at him knowingly, but doesn't attempt to contradict Will's answer.

"I haven't always been able to," the man continues as if Will had actually asked. He looks behind him, like this is a secret he doesn't want anyone to hear. "I'm hoping to investigate if it's an ability that can be brought about in situations of distress."

"Then all of us would talk to them." Will's mouth moves without him willing it to, and he regrets it the second the words tumble out of his mouth.

"It is still an investigation, there could be another connection." The Professor says almost dismissively. "You just needed to know that you are not… deranged."

Will has no idea what that word means, but it sounds like the professor is trying to comfort him in some way. Then Will remembers the deep apprehension squeezing, clawing at his chest whenever Zuzu talked to him, and he breathes a little easier for the first time in weeks.

"Yeah, I… thanks."

Professor Rowan nods, eyes lingering on Will's jacket with a frown, and leaves, disappearing into the dark corner where he always sleeps.

The next day, Emery leaves the Center especially early and doesn't come back.

Will waits, because that's what Will does, but days go by and Emery is still gone.

"Maybe he's just caught up somewhere. They said in the news to wait inside 'till Mr. Cyrus can make the Kanto soldiers go west." Dawn is lying down in Will's futon. She doesn't seem to realize that only makes everything worse. Mei the turtwig stares at Zuzu and doesn't talk.

Dawn nudges Will's shoulder with her head, and though he doesn't particularly mind, it seems like an awkward way to reassure someone, and Will leans away just enough for her to get the hint. She pouts.

"You're so mean!" She complains.

Will folds into himself, tucking half his face into the collar of his jacket, and drawing his arms and knees toward his chest.

"He said he wanted to look for his dad." Zuzu says. He jumps into Will's arms and wiggles until the boy's arms are wrapped snuggly around him.

"He said he wanted to look for his dad." Will parrots, hoping Dawn won't hear him.

"Oh!" The girl chirps, smiling again. Will still wonders how she does that, even after seeing the destruction on television. He knows now that the girl and her parents had been here hours before the attacks started and so she never saw or felt any of it first-hand, but still, the muscles in charge of making him smile have seem too become lax with disuse, and he doesn't understand how hers still work. "Are you going to go looking for him, then?"

"Yeah!" Zuzu chimes from between Will's arms. Will looks away from Dawn and directly into his pokémon's eyes.

"What?" He manages to bite out.

"Let's go look for him, I can protect you, I promise." Zuzu doesn't seem particularly happy about the idea of leaving, but he looks at Will kindly, like he knows that for Will the seconds are crawling by and that the gray walls seem to be closer to them every time Will looks up, growing ever closer until they crush him.

"But they're… Kanto is attacking us!" It sounds like a weak excuse when his own head is attacking him every night and his side itches as the wound slowly seals closed.

Zuzu puts small paws on Will's chest and insists. The chimchar looks almost desperate, and Will doesn't understand why this pokémon even wanted to stay with him to begin with, never mind how he knows he's going to go crazy if he doesn't at least go outside.

"I… I mean, I guess we could…"

Before he can finish, Zuzu jumps away from him and tugs at Mei until they're both looking around the futon, then Zuzu holds up the bag Emery had pressed into his chest before leaving Twinleaf.

"Will?" Dawn is staring at him in concern, and it is only then that Will realizes he was straight up talking to his chimchar in front of another person.

"'M fine. I'mna look for Emery."

When he doesn't move, Dawn's frown becomes more pronounced. "Now?"

"N—" But then Zuzu tugs at his jacket and Will finds himself standing. "I mean, I guess."

Next thing he knows, Will is on his feet, backpack strapped to his shoulders. He isn't exactly sure what he is doing, but Zuzu pulls at his pant leg until he is moving toward the stairs.

"William?" Will flinches and whirls to face Professor Rowan, who is looking pointedly at Zuzu. "You don't have a pokéball to return him to."

Will squirms under the stern gaze, his shoulders hunched. "No, I don't."

Professor Rowan nods. "Be careful."

The man claps him on the shoulder, his hand lingering for a second before he retrieves it. Dawn is standing behind him, and she too is staring at Will, though she is doing so in awe. She waves at him even when she's close enough to talk to him, and Mei imitates her after a second, though the turtwig is clearly motioning at Zuzu.

Once more, Will finds himself moving without ordering his body to do so. He walks through the deserted corridors of the center, his chest tight, and he has to fight not to look for Emery in the hallways. Will knows his friend is not here, even if he can't explain how he knows it.

Instead, he follows Zuzu as the chimchar leads him to the exit.

"It's over there!" Zuzu says, grin evident in his voice. Will makes his legs move faster. His side still hurts, but much less than before, and at least he knows he won't bleed to death now, since the worst of the wound has already healed.

As he approaches the glass doors, Will feels a rush of panic. Zuzu grabs at him in time to stop him from going back to the bunker and staying there forever. The chimchar tugs at his pants again, stronger than before, and Will can only follow or he'll fall on his face.

Sandgem looks like someone started attacking it and then suddenly changed their mind. A few of the buildings have gawking holes marring the walls, but most of them are still standing. The ground itself looks intact.

It's all a far cry from the charred grass, the scenery thick with smoke, the orange hues painting Emery's face back in Twinleaf, and Will wants to curl in a corner and shiver. He knows he can't do it, that they have to get out of the way before Kanto changes its mind about Sandgem and returns with nidoking and scyther and pinsir to obliterate what's left of the town.

Zuzu looks all around, then tugs Will again, until the boy is following without more prompts. The dirt road under his feet becomes more gravelly as they move, Will looking around for some sort of sign that tells them where to go.

He finally sees it. Will has knelt down, resting as the sun slowly sinks behind Mt. Coronet, Zuzu perched on his shoulder. The sign is rusted, and on the ground rather than actually marking the way to the route, but Will is so relieved to see it that he almost wants to laugh. It's ridiculous, really, to feel so good after seeing a number on a metal plate, yet Will doesn't care, he's tired and in pain but at least he's going in the right direction.

Zuzu is every bit as happy as Will, and the chimchar grins up at the boy. They make their way through the path and finally take refuge alongside the road, beneath the trees and behind a bush so nobody can see them.

Will is cold, night air seeping through the folds of his jacket and enveloping him, until Zuzu jumps into his arms, burying himself inside Will's coat. The warmth that emanates from Zuzu is more than a blessing, and Will promptly closes his eyes.

"Thank you." He whispers. He feels his consciousness slipping, and Will fights, because he'd rather be tired, deliberately delusional, than go back to sleep.

"That's okay. I'll protect you."

Subconsciously, Will is unsure what those words are supposed to mean. If it's an answer to his words, or if it's supposed to be a reassurance that goes deeper than that, but Will is twelve and sleepy and whatever it means doesn't really matter. The boy sighs and stops struggling against himself, furrowing further into his jacket.

{…}

"Wake up!"

Will scrunches his face, curling into a smaller ball when the cool air hits his face. It's warmer than before he went to sleep, but it's most definitely still winter.

"Will, wake up, there's something there."

There's a rustle somewhere to his left, and Will's eyes snap open. He hurries to his feet barely registering daylight, and stumbles back to get away from whatever Zuzu is talking about. Will only stops when he sees Zuzu looks more concerned than frightened, the chimchar's head buried in a bush.

"W-what is it?" Will's voice sounds rougher, his throat burns.

"She's hurt!" Zuzu screams, tiny arms reaching and failing to grab something hidden in the bush.

"Who's hurt?" Will gives a couple of steps forward. He regrets talking, and promptly shuts his mouth with a click. Tears spring to his eyes, and he blinks them back, tugging his jacket closer to him.

"Her." Zuzu is pointing, and Will hesitantly leans in, face already twisting into a grimace at the thought of what he could find.

There's blood, and Will gags. A starly is in the bush, her wing twisted impossibly, but one of her eyes is open and wildly alert, her other wing raised up defensively.

"Hi." Zuzu says, his brow furrowed in concern. "We can help you, right?" He turns to look at Will at this point, and the boy's shoulders hunch, knowing he really can't help with the wing, but he can at least try.

So Will nods, and when Zuzu tries again and fails, Will reaches into the bush to grab the starly. The starly flinches, shivering, but for all of his exhaustion, Will is still faster than the injured pokémon, and his fingers quickly close around her. He tries to gentle out his touch, even though the early morning chill makes it hard, and pulls the starly close to his chest.

Zuzu quickly climbs up to Will's shoulder as the boy looks around nervously and starts hurriedly down the dirt road once again. "What's your name?" He asks the small bird.

The starly takes a long time to answer, as if she was pondering her options. Finally, she raises her head, both of her eyes closed in pain, and replies, "Adelaide."

Zuzu smiles the gentle smile that has soothed Will after his nightmares ever since they met. "Hi, Adelaide. We're going to help you."

 **{E N D - 0 0 2}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 2; Deaths| 0**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Chimchar  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 10

 **Name|** Adelaide  
 **Species|** Starly  
 **Nature|** Timid  
 **Characteristic|** Proud of her power  
 **Ability|** Keen Eye  
 **Level|** 10


	3. Here They Sang About Tomorrow

**Warning: Violence**

Title from: Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

* * *

 **003.** **Here They Sang About Tomorrow (and tomorrow never came)**

For someone who grew up in a sleepy place like Twinleaf, Jubilife City is overwhelmingly loud and big.

'The city of joy' looks more like hell on Earth. The buildings are ransacked, glowing red and blue with the oscillating lights of police cars, their sirens turned all the way up until they flood the city. All the windows are obscured with dirt where they are not broken. People run, screaming, as some men stand amidst the chaos, yelling and raising pamphlets into the air.

Will stays to the side of the road, first walking, then running as the people who move past him shove him and curse at him.

The mood of panic is contagious, and soon Will joins the others, his breath hitched, his shoulders coiled, and fists grabbing at the feathers of Adelaide's back, who is still in his arms. A rough hand grabs his arm and pulls him roughly back, and Will is facing the crazed face of a man who shoves a pamphlet into his face.

"Have you converted to Arceusism, boy?"

Will yelps, fighting desperately against the strong grip as he shakes his head. Zuzu is there instantly, snarling despite his usual mild disposition, but the man doesn't back up.

"Leave me alone!" Will cries "Go away!"

"He is the only one who can help us, boy!" The man urges "Come with me! Acreus' church is near, and He wouldn't let a little boy get hurt in his church."

The man pulls, and Zuzu jumps. Snarling transforming into a roar, the chimchar scratches at the man's face. The wound is deep, the attack fueled by anger, and the man cries and lets go of Will's arm in favor to grab at his face in an attempt to soothe the pain.

"Come on!" Zuzu orders, tiny hand pulling on Will's pant leg.

Will follows without hesitation, evading the streets where large police officers and people in white uniforms stand behind a table, a line in front of them, where frightened people bend and sign on wrinkled pieces of paper.

They come to a halt in front of a fountain that seems more or less secluded. Zuzu breathes heavily, but doesn't hesitate on going over to the fountain to drink a few sips of the grainy water. Tears in his face, chest heaving painfully and cold air stinging his throat, Will follows. He leaves Adelaide in the sill of the fountain and leans in, cupping his hands to gather some water and lifting them to his face to clean the stickiness of cold sweat, tears, and dirt off his face. Then he takes a few sips, grimacing at the specks of concrete he feels on his tongue.

Will gathers Adelaide in his hands again, and uses the water to wash the blood from the feathers. If possible, the wing looks even worse without the cover of black-red hiding it, but Will knows about infections, and the less time the wound is covered in rotting blood, the better.

Adelaide has calmed down now, or at least trusts Will and Zuzu won't hurt her right off the bat, and she hides her head in her good wing, saying nothing, but clearly trying to get some sleep.

The small group keeps moving, jumpy as the screams grow louder. Zuzu keeps trying to comfort Will, but his words are lost in the ocean of sirens and roars of wild pokémon and the shrill cries of children. A woman wearing the white uniform he saw before sees them, smiles, and gets closer with deliberate slowness. Will gives a step back, but she raises her hands, smile never wavering. A golden _G_ is stitched to the breast of the coat, which looks much more futuristic up close. She has to be with Team Galactic.

"Hey, sweethe—"

"A-are you with Mr. Cyrus?" Will recognizes the uniform, now, as the one Mr. Cyrus uses on his interviews. The black on the sides of the woman's coat is faded, but it's still there. "What's your name?"

She blinks, then huffs out a snort and nods her head. "Lilith. Will you let me get you somewhere safe?"

Will nods and almost tears up again. He's been on the road for days, and he's hungry and tired and scared. The woman takes him by the hand, types something into a watch tied to her wrist, and guides him to a pokémon center.

This one is full of people. Most of them are sitting, all of them have their heads down. Lilith guides Will through them until they are in a room with only a couple of people. She sits him down at a table with another boy.

"Do you want me to help with your starly?"

"No." Will clutches the pokémon closer to him, and Zuzu looks up from his place behind Will's head.

Lilith's smile sobers to the point of souring, then widens again, not as bright. "Are you hungry, then?"

"Yes."

When she leaves, the boy in front of him shakes his head, eyes rising from his book. "You should've let her take the starly, they're all helping with my bidoof."

Will shrugs, and now that he has a roof over his head and the promise of food for his aching stomach, he puts Adelaide on the table, where she is quickly joined by Zuzu, and looks at her wing more carefully.

"Not broken," Adelaide chirps sleepily.

Will nods, not quite knowing what to do with his hands, and twitches when the boy gives him a set of bandages. At his look, the boy shrugs, pointing to the first aid kit stuck to the wall. For the first time, he sees the boy is dressed handsomely, in a white suit what would be pristine if it wasn't full of grime. Will lowers his eyes and gets to work on, wrapping the bandage around Adelaide's wing.

Zuzu cuddles to Will's stomach, nursing the small fruit Lilith got for him when she brought Will his cold sausages that taste vaguely like gravel and mostly like a horrible mix of sweat and smoke. Will finishes wrapping the bandage before giving Adelaide a bit of the sausage and finishing the rest, resisting the overwhelming urge of puking.

After he's done, Lilith gives him directions to the sleeping quarters, and Will follows them until he finds himself in a basement not unlike the one he stayed at in Sandgem. Will looks around the room, pushing between tightly-packed people. There is no free futon or bed he can use, nor any sign Emery's in there, so he starts looking for a dark corner where he can sleep.

"Will!"

Dawn's pink coat is like a beacon in this room full of people dressed in greys, blacks, and muted browns. Will startles when the girl jumps, her arms tight around his shoulders. Zuzu and Adelaide both jump down and away, the starly hiding behind the chimchar. Will wiggles free, stepping back. Dawn has tears in her eyes, her lip worked between her teeth.

"Are you okay?" She sounds frightened and relieved at the same time, doesn't even seem to register that Will shook off her touch.

" _Who is she?"_ Will hears Adelaide whisper to Zuzu.

Will shrugs to answer Dawn's question. Then there's another face there, big, adult hands touching his face, and Will flinches, closing his eyes and slapping one of the hands away.

"Fine, he is." Will opens his eyes, trying not to meet the stranger's searching gaze. "Tell me, young lad, have you been fed?"

Mutely, Will nods, fingers twitching until Zuzu finds his hand and uses it to climb to his chest, where the boy wraps the pokémon in his arms.

"Will, this is… well, Looker, he said. He helped me get here." Dawn voice is strange, brittle rather than the perky it was back in Sandgem. Will looks at her, senses something is wrong. "Will, I'm glad you're okay. We… I came after you to… to give you pokéballs, since… since you didn't have any and I'm the Professor's assistant. But… but Kanto was attacking when I got here! Mr. Looker brought me here, but now he says he… that we should leave!" She presses a small bunch of pokéballs into his hands.

'Looker' doesn't look like much. An aging man in a cheap brown suit and a dirty trench coat. But he's an adult, and he probably knows what to do more than Will does.

"Why do you want to leave?" His voice doesn't rise above a whisper, and none of the others pay the oddballs any mind.

Looker lowers his voice to match Will's. "Team Galactic is controlling this city."

Will frowns, and Zuzu joins him. Adelaide merely watches, now safely behind Will's leg. "So? Mr. Cyrus is with Team Galactic, and he's going to protect us. He said so!"

The man gives him a pitying look, then visibly searches for another approach. "Ever heard of the saying 'don't be a thief!'?"

Will purses his lips, and shakes his head, but he follows Looker as he and Dawn begin to make their way to a more secluded corner of the basement. Looker too furrows his brow.

"No? You claim to not know it? How could that be? Perhaps your mama has said it, but you have forgotten it, like usual? The International Police is investigating Cyrus Reed, who is suspected with theft and—"

At that, Will bristles, pushing past Looker, who pulls him back in front of him and looks around like the walls have ears and doors have eyes. Will realizes the man has put him and Dawn at an angle where his body covers them from the glare of a small window.

"You don't know anything about my mom!" Will tries to scream, though it comes out as a croak instead. Tears prickle his eyes again, and Will doesn't try to stop them from falling this time. "And Mr. Cyrus saved me and my friend back in Twinleaf! You're a liar."

Will promptly stomps off to another corner, Zuzu and Adelaide following. He settles down on the floor, taking as little space as possible as his pokémon join him.

 **{…}**

"Why aren't you with your mom?" It's been a couple of days since his outburst, and Will shrugs at Adelaide's question. Zuzu is sleeping on his lap.

"She died."

Adelaide quiets down, then quickly changes the subject. "Can I use one of those?" With her uninjured wing, she motions for one of the pokéballs that are still in his hand.

Will shrugs. "I guess. Do you want to come with me?"

The pokémon deflates, eyes darting around. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know. After my friend."

She hesitates, fluttering her injured wing gently, then nods. Will has seen TV shows that follow famous pokémon trainers around while they catch pokémon, so he has a fair idea of what to do. He touches the button in the middle of the pokéball, and it activates, growing larger. Adelaide does the rest, approaching it with caution and tapping it with her beak until it opens with a beam of red light that swallows her. Seconds later, the ball shakes and Adelaide comes free in a second beam of light.

"I feel a little better." She mutters to herself.

 **{…}**

Pokéballs, Will learns, have some sort of healer in them. They do not outright heal the pokémon, but the healing is promoted and, apparently, accelerated. Either that, or Adelaide is just an unnaturally fast healer.

After only a few days, she insists Will take off her bandage, and Will, heedless of good sense, obeys. It is all for the better, because the wing is mostly healed, and now there is nothing stopping them from leaving Jubilife and the constant, lingering fear that Kanto will return to attack.

There are fewer people, now. Team Galactic is constantly coming over with their recruiting lists, and it is only because he's too young that they won't let him join. He insists he can help against the Kanto Army, but Lilith sits him down and tries to reason that they are there to protect people like him, too young or too old to truly defend themselves. Eventually, Will stops insisting, and instead sits in a corner while the adults continue to leave.

Today, Will awoke from a nightmare drenched in cold sweat. There's kids a little older than him leaning over him, and Will knows he screamed.

"'m sorry," Will mutters pitifully, hugging his jacket closer to him. Most of the teenagers grumble and curse under their breath as they head back to their own corners, and Will only barely sees Dawn staring at him before she blushes and lowers her head, as if ashamed to be seen.

 _She stayed behind._

It's not something he likes to remember, because at least she would be out of the city if she hadn't listened to him. Would still be safe in Sandgem's pokémon center if she hadn't come all this way just to give him five pokéballs. It's stupid.

Will has to leave this place. The fear is intoxicating, poisoning his blood, and Emery is most definitely not here. He has to find Emery, because Emery always knows what to do.

Whenever someone tries to leave, Lilith or somebody else has them return to the center. It is safer, and they are trying to get all the people in one place so they can watch out for them. There's something that sounds odd about that strategy to Will, but he knows Team Galactic is only trying to help, so he says nothing.

Now, though, Will needs to leave, and the only way to do it is to sneak out of the window in the basement. Since everyone is still asleep, it's not so much of a problem. He makes sure that the pokéballs and the pieces of bread are in his bag, as well as the two bottles of potion he nicked from upstairs. Then, Will walks over, tiptoeing around the futons and shushing Zuzu every time he tries to speak. Adelaide is more tuned with what it is they have to do, and she quickly breaks the window with a wing.

It's noisy, so she flies out immediately, while Will struggles to gather a distracted Zuzu and hoisting himself up.

" _Hey!_ "

A member of Team Galactic is at his back, and Will finally finishes heaving himself out the window. He turns back around, an apologetic look on his face, and waves a hand hastily.

"Sorry! I have to go!"

It sounds silly, but he really is sorry. It's clear Team Galactic is doing its best, and here Will is, ruining their plans. He runs into the fog, his pokémon clinging to him, and hopes he will find Emery soon.

 **{...}**

By the time he stops running, Will's legs are ready to give out under him. The morning is foggy, and the city is way past him. He can see the TV Station, but only because the bright lights all around it can only sort of shine through the fog. Will figures this is good. If he cannot see the city, then no one in the city should be able to see him. He thinks Team Galactic would not try to collect him since he's officially out of Jubilife, but Lilith did go out of her way to make sure Will was safe, and got a small piece of bread or cheese every day, so he's not sure.

"Can we rest?" Asks Zuzu, who hasn't walked at all since Will started to run. Next to him, Adelaide chirps at him angrily.

"Yeah," Will hufs out. "Yeah, okay."

So they do. Will sits under a tree, his eyes constantly tilting up to the sky in expectancy of an incoming attack, while Zuzu and Adelaide both feed on some grass. When Will sees this, he sighs, reaching into his bag and getting a piece of bread. He breaks it in two and gives a half to each pokémon.

Bread still in hand, Zuzu buries himself in Will's stomach, and warmth creeps up the boy like a shadow, enveloping him in a cocoon.

 **{…}**

Will startles awake when Adelaide cries out, and the boy sits up, yanking at the starly who was being dragged away.

With the bread still in her beak, Adelaide says forcefully, "If you don't let go, I'ma hurt you!" She sounds terrified, though, and that's enough to make her message falter. Zuzu claws at Will's jacket as he fights to get to Adelaide, and then the chimchar has come between the two smaller pokémon.

Will pulls Adelaide to his chest as she regains her breath, and now that Zuzu is standing between them, the boy has time to look at their attacker; a small blue kitten that is visibly having a hard time staying on her feet. Still, she growls at Zuzu, eyeing the three of them before her eyes glue to the piece of bread. She growls again, though she's backing up, now, like she wants to hide in the bushes again.

There's something painfully familiar about her, and Will draws slightly closer, trying to see what it is. When she cringes but bears her fangs at him anyway, Will understands, and he stops.

"It's okay." He says, trying to be soothing even though he has heard a rasp in his voice ever since the explosion in Twinleaf and it clearly trembles with an ever-present fear that seems so have become part of his personality at this point. "I'm Will, and he is Zuzu and she's Adelaide. We… we're just walking through. We're not going to hurt you."

The shinx whines in response, and indistinguishable sound even to Will, who has gotten sort of used to the idea of pokémon talking.

"She's a baby," Zuzu says, turning toward Will before focusing back on the small blue pokémon.

He has a point, Will thinks. Will can't say he has seen a lot of shinx in the past, but his textbooks had measurements of a lot of species, and he's sure Emery told him a shinx would go up to Will's shins, and, well, this one hardly reaches past his ankle.

"She tried to take my bread." Adelaide mumbles into Will's chest. He combs her feathers with small fingers, and that seems enough to calm her down.

The shinx is looking at him now, and he makes a show of reaching into his bag and pulling out a loaf of bread before approaching slowly.

He doesn't know if Zuzu talking to her helped or if she is just so hungry she's willing to risk it, but she stays put as Will offers a small piece of the bread to her. She smells his hand and then bites in, and Will uses this chance to grab her and hold her in his arms.

Adelaide isn't too thrilled when the shinx buries herself into Will's hold, but she stays on her trainer's shoulder and deals as the boy continues to feed the starved pokémon.

"Do you have a name?" Will asks.

"I don't think she does." Zuzu has no way to possibly know that, but Will doesn't know either and Zuzu sounds confident, so Will smiles down at the shinx because she's small and small pokémon have always made him smile.

"Okay, then I'm going to call you Evangeline."

Evangeline is already asleep when Will taps a pokéball on her head and the beam of red light engulfs her.

 **{E N D - 0 0 3}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 3; Deaths| 0**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Chimchar  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 10

 **Name|** Adelaide  
 **Species|** Starly  
 **Nature|** Timid  
 **Characteristic|** Proud of her power  
 **Ability|** Keen Eye  
 **Level|** 10

 **Name|** Evangeline  
 **Species|** Shinx  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Somewhat stubborn  
 **Ability|** Intimidate  
 **Level|** 4


	4. We're Soldiers (and soldiers bleed)

So... I want to apologize for this chapter. It is the reason that last tag had to be added. When I was writing, I realized I wasn't using a lot of the random trainers, and so I used this one in a... strange way. I continued writing and planning, and when I went back to edit this chapter, I realized how much this situation affected Will's relationship with another character. So either I left this here, or I had to undo several conversations and actions later on. So, I left this.

Be clear, though, that it was not meant to imply Will's lack of sexual or romantic interest comes from this, and I added a paragraph to make that as clear as I could. Will Pierce was, is, will, and would have been aroace despite whatever actions would have taken place in this chapter, as he was conceived as an aroace character from the very start.

Title: Soldiers by Ulrik Munther

* * *

 **004.** **We're Soldiers (and soldiers bleed)**

" _Stop!_ "

Will tumbles as he runs, and he struggles to maintain his balance. He gives a couple of large, uneven steps, grabs on to a blackened tree, and boosts himself forward. Next to him, Zuzu is the paragon of grace, constantly twisting to evade the large tufts of charred grass that make walking an impossible task. Up above them, Adelaide is chirping urgently, coaxing them to move before the girl gets too far away.

Pushing on his legs even further, Will jumps head-on into the tall grass. He sees a blur of blue, then a flash of yellow, and he jumps.

He collides with the girl, his shoulder to the small of her back, and lets himself slam to the ground, bringing the girl down with him. Zuzu lands on his head not long after, and Adelaide perches on his back, something like an angry tweet coming from her beak.

"Give it to me!" Will demands. The girl is bigger than him, probably would be stronger if she didn't look like she hadn't eaten in days.

"Get off me, you ass!" She yells back, wriggling out from under his slight weight.

Will's hand clamps around the strap of his bag, looped around the girl's shoulder. "It's mine, give it!"

When she shakes her head and shoves Will's face away with her hand, Zuzu is quick to bite down on it. She yelps, elbowing Will on the temple. He rolls off her with a cry, and wrestles the bag off her shoulder when she makes to run again. He hugs the bag close, reaches into the side pocket to grab Evangeline´s pokéball, and slings it across his back again.

"Fucking brat." The girl mutters. Her blond hair is tangled, in her cheekbone growing slightly red is the first sign of bruising from when she fell face-first into the ground because of Will's tackle.

"It's mine!" Will repeats. The tears in his eyes reflect hers. He bites back a sob.

"So what?!" Her nails are dirty but sharp. There's red-brown under them, and Will gives a step back, wanting to get away from her.

"So you can't take it!"

Zuzu stands in front of him, now. He doesn't growl, he never does. But it becomes clear the girl has no pokémon when she finally backs down, eyeing the chimchar and then the starly. She reaches for her waist, then stops and finally huffs.

"Fine. Keep your fucking food." She mutters something else under her breath, but Will can't catch what it is. The girl then steps back, disappearing among the yellowed-black tall grass.

Will waits very still for an hour, listening warily to the surrounding sounds in case she changes her mind and risks a fistfight with his pokémon. As long as he has food and she doesn't, it sounds like a decision she had seemed willing to make.

"So, what now?" Adelaide asks almost forcefully.

Will pulls Evangeline out of her pokéball, watching the baby shinx yawn and curl up in Will's lap. The boy goes to put the pokéball back into his bag, then thinks better of it, reaches in for Adelaide's as well and buries both of them deep in his pocket.

Then, finally, he takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down.

"I don't know. I don't know where we are."

"It's okay," Zuzu says, all pleasant smile and understanding eyes.

"It's not okay! _Where_ are we supposed to go _now_!?" Adelaide insists, her wing moving accusingly in front of their faces.

Lip trembling, Will looks around and knows he's stalling. They can't stall, not now, not ever.

Oreburgh Gate is extremely close.

"That's… we—we should… to… to the mountain, I mean." He points vaguely indicating that he means walking, _going_ to the big structure of rock.

"I thought we were going _away_ from the mountain." Adelaide sneers. " _Away_. Because it's _dangerous_."

"But—But I—"

The siren is deafening. It comes from the other side of the mountain, but Will knows what it means. _Look for cover_ , Emery told him back in Sandgem, when they had settled themselves next to the radio and some lady had begun singing to keep herself from hearing the others cry. _"When you hear the siren, run for cover."_ The grass all around them is brown and gray and black. They have to be in the firing zone.

Zuzu seems to remember the conversation as well. Will stands frozen in his place, but the chimchar cries and nudges him forward, pressing all his weight into the back of the boy's leg. Adelaide doesn't know what's happening, but Zuzu doesn't push unless it's important, so she, too, begins to panic. She uses her beak to grab the front of Will's jacket, and pulls with what clearly is all her might.

Soon, Will regains the use of his legs, and he scoops up Zuzu in one arm, the other already occupied by Evangeline, and bursts into a run, shouting after Adelaide for her to follow.

The path to the mountain is surprisingly easy to climb. Rocks have been broken and chucked to the sides of a mostly straight road made out of stepped-on dirt and tiny stones. The siren is blaring in their ears. Will doesn't stop running until he has to duck to make it to the inside of the cave.

The inside is lit by a row torches that line the wall to his right, and Will makes sure to stay _way_ to his left and keep his eyes trained on the floor. Evangeline chirps at the fire though, making a sound that could either be a giggle or a strained cough.

The siren is cut off by the first explosion.

Will cringes, flinching back into the wall. The rumble of the second explosion makes everything shake, and Will moves away from the wall this time, kneeling on the floor instead, arms over his head.

"Boy!" A man calls, "Boy, come 'ere, ya're too close ta' the gate!"

Will doesn't move, but the man grabs him anyway, pulling him to a smaller, more closed-off part of the cave. The man is burly, tall enough that his head touches the ceiling of this cut-off chamber, but he kneels, trying to be on eye level with the boy. It doesn't quite work, Will is small as it is, and now hunches as the strain of the run and stress from the rumbling outside catches up to him.

"My name's Hunter." The man says, watching as Zuzu and Adelaide crowd around their trainer in an attempt to calm him down. "What's yar's?" There's another rumbling boom, and Will squeezes his eyes shut. "Boy?"

"William," Will replies. He doesn't know why he introduced himself like that, using his full name, but he doesn't really think about it. He's tired, his ears are ringing.

"Don't ya worry, William, they'll stop by mornin'."

Adelaide turns to the man with a puffed-up chest, and Hunter chuckles, patting her on the head with a heavy hand. Zuzu burrows further into Will's chest until he manages to undo the buttons and unzip the jacket, pressing his warm fur between Will's chest and the jacket's wool.

Will tucks Evangeline inside the coat as well, wanting her to get part of the heat.

"Okay," Will says in response to the man's vain reassurance. "What happens until then?"

Adelaide shoots him an odd glance, "We should get out of here." She says.

"They're throwing… they're making pokémon explode outside." He whispers back.

"Ah, don't mind tha', my boy. As long as we stay 'ere we'll be safe." Hunter claps his shoulder, and Will remembers he needs to keep his mouth shut instead of talking back to his pokémon when he's in front of other people.

"O-okay." Will says noncommittally.

Hunter grins, and pats his shoulder again. "Ya can leave your bag there. It looks 'eavy. And I 'ave some canned beans around 'ere somewhere…" He trails off as Will takes off his really-not-heavy-at-all backpack and pushes it to a corner, settling against it.

Will accepts the can of beans with a thin, weary smile. He has no spoons and Hunter doesn't offer one, so Will moves the lid away and scoops up the goopy beans with his fingers, shoveling them into his mouth. They're cold, so he asks Zuzu for help. Happily, the chimchar does, setting his tail against the can.

"Can you heat up Hunter's, too?" He asks.

"All right."

And the chimchar goes while Will allows Evangeline and Adelaide to eat some beans out of the can. When Zuzu returns, he gets the rest.

"Ye're sharin' with pokémon?" Hunter asks, his brow furrowed.

"Yeah," Will replies, "They're as hungry as I am. And they got me here, too." He shrugs. He's hungry still, but it's a small price to pay. He would still be in Sandgem if it wasn't for Zuzu.

Hunter looks unconvinced but he nods anyway. "So wha's a little kid like ya doin' out 'ere?"

He doesn't say 'by yourself', but Will can hear it loud and clear. He looks at Adelaide, who has apparently made it her mission to stay between him and Hunter for as long as she can, then at Zuzu, who is laying down on his lap, staring up at nothing.

"I'm from Twinleaf." Will hopes that's enough for an explanation, and apparently it is. Hunter swallows thickly, then nods.

"'Orry so hear tha'" He chews on the beans for a little while longer. "Long way from home."

There's something about the way he says it that sounds odd, but Will shrugs it off, puts it on guilt for asking.

"I'm looking for my friend. We wanna go to his dad's but he left first." He explains. He knows he needs to stop explaining.

"Righ', well," The accent is back, and Will relaxes. It had to have been his imagination. "I can take ya across the city. No place for a kid like ya, Oreburgh. I know some safe places."

"Would you?!" Will is much too excited and he knows it, but it's been a while since someone was nice to him. It makes him want to go back to Jubilife and find Lilith and beg her to take him back to their shelter. "It… That'd be awesome!"

Hunter grins and chuckles. "We need to sleep soon, the'. Early day tomorrow."

"Right."

Will ignores Adelaide's alarmed look and moves to obey Hunter, using an old thick blanket to block the light from the torches and the dust that keeps sweeping into the smaller chamber. He secures it, jamming it between two large rocks to keep it in place, then, finally, pulls at this sleeves to tuck his hands inside them, and settles as he waits for Hunter to blow out the candle they'd been sharing. Evangeline quickly burrows between his arms and chest and Zuzu nests against Will's stomach.

"Adelaide—"

"I'm trying to keep you safe, so save it!"

Will shuts his mouth with a click. He sighs, glancing at Hunter's silhouette as the man lays down in the furthest wall and finally decides there's nothing he can do about Adelaide being paranoid, so he lays back down, and closes his eyes.

 **{…}**

He only wakes up when a rough hand grabs him through his pants, and Will struggles, kicking at the sturdy arm holding his leg down.

"What are—"

"Shh" The voice is next to his ear, and the man uses his the hand that was holding his leg to cover his mouth.

Will only struggles harder. He can't see anything, his breathing is shallow and the man is squeezing, massaging, shushing him.

He moves his head and, when the man tries to keep him in place, he bites down on the hand covering his mouth with as much force as he can muster. The man— _Hunter, it's Hunter, he recognizes the voice_ —curses, bringing his hand back to his chest to nurse it.

"Adelaide?!" Will cries. He doesn't recognize his own voice, so high-pitched and desperate, but he struggles to sit up, staggering backwards. "Zuzu!"

"Shut your mouth, you little slut!" The whisper is harsh and there are hands on him again, grabbing at his ankle and yanking.

Will's feet are pulled from right under him, and his back slams hard against the floor of rock, his head cracking on the stone. Both his vision and his hearing are blurry for a second, static taking over. He howls in pain, but Hunter presses his mouth against his own, muffling his scream, and slides his tongue inside Will's mouth.

Hunter doesn't even need to break a sweat to pin Will under him, big calloused hands settling on the smooth skin of his stomach. Will wants to tell him to stop, but when he tries to, Hunter only pushes his tongue deeper into his mouth. Will struggles, wriggling his shoulders in an attempt to get some room to move.

Hunter's hands wrenches Will's pants down his kicking legs, and massages him again until he stirs. Will can't see it, but he can almost hear the man's smile when he speaks.

"Shush, boy, you'll like this." Hunter promises.

He won't. It's disgusting. He has never understood Emery's insistent drooling over girls and he felt overwhelmingly uncomfortable whenever the older boy tried to show him the magazines he hid under his bed. The sensation they caused him was almost sickening.

Hunter is sickening, and Will finally starts to sob.

Will struggles until his hand is free from under Hunter's torso, but the man pays him no heed. Instead, he unbuckles his belt with one hand, and undoes the zipper, knee pressing into Will's ankle to prevent his escape.

The world is dark, but Will knows what's next, and the growls out another sob as he forcefully wrenches as the man tends to himself. Hunter catches him again, one of his hands shoving Will's face into the floor, dragging until stone and gravel cut his skin and the boy screams. His hand coils around it; jagged and heavy. With a wet scream, Will flings his arm in a wide circle, until the rock in his hand smashes to Hunter's skull.

Hunter yowls and staggers away, and Will feels a force almost like gravity pulling him, making him follow. Hunter grabs one of his arms, and Will raises the other and smacks the rock into the man's forehead. This time, the blood sticks to Will's hand and the boy is furious and frightened and cold, and he raises his hand again, putting his whole weight into the hits.

He's screaming. And he does it again, and again, and again. He strikes the man until he goes limp under him, until his breathing is so erratic his hand is just not under his control anymore. Will chokes another sob and finally collapses on his back, trying not to feel the stickiness smeared all over his fingers.

"Zuzu?" He remembers suddenly, now that the white-hot panic is gone. He gets up and runs to the mouth of the small cave, grabbing the thick blanket and tugging sharply.

The yellow-orange glow of the torches gives him enough light to see Zuzu lying on the floor of the cave. He rushes back to him, struggling to pull his pants up, and kneels. He shakes him, repeating the chimchar's name over and over under his breath.

Zuzu doesn't quite react, but his chest is moving, and Will breathes out, the tightness of his chest lifting slightly. His hands are still trembling, but he tries to get them under control as he twists and looks for his things because he has to get out of here.

The second he touches Adelaide's pokéball, the starly comes out in a beam of red light, and starts screaming.

"What happened?!" She demands, as Will shoves everything in sight into his bag. "Boy!"

Will goes through cans of food Hunter had with him, the thick blanket, and all the pokéballs he sees because he doesn't know which ones are his and he has to get _out of here_.

The boy picks up Zuzu and cradles him to his chest. The small flame that should burn on his rear is smothered out, but he can feel the breaths warming his neck. Adelaide is still hovering around, but she's no longer yelling or demanding anything. She takes a glance at her trainer's wild eyes and his bloodied hand and undone jeans and doesn't have to look at the body or ask anything else.

Instead, she perches herself on Will's shoulder and nuzzles his cheek, trying to calm him down.

"W—What's wrong with him?"

Adelaide merely leans down and sniffs at her teammate before regaining her place at Will's shoulder, using her beak to pull the strap of his bag further up his shoulder. "He's just sleeping. He probably ate something bad."

"Bu—but..!"

"He'll be fine, Will. Let's get out of here."

He doesn't even nod, just starts down the cave with a bouncy, jittery urgency that puts Adelaide on edge. The cave is long and humid, but Will can't hear explosions any longer. He stops when he's a good distance away from the man, and he kneels down, still anxious to get out of the tunnel but unable to carry everything in such an uncomfortable hold.

At Adelaide's suggestion, the boy empties his bag and gives her the mess of a blanket he stole, and she extends it next to him so she can fold it correctly. Inside the bag are things that he doesn't remember, that clearly don't belong to him; a rope, purple and orange bottles of spray medicine, a couple of CDs and a disc reader. He examines the pokéballs carefully, picking out Evangeline's and clipping it to his belt before noticing his undone zipper and finally adjusting his pants correctly.

After some more examination, he puts all the pokéballs in the smallest pocket of his backpack, save for one, which is only slightly heavier than the rest; telltale sign of a pokémon inside. Will visibly hesitates, hugging Zuzu closely and glancing briefly at Adelaide, who quickly jumps in front of him reassuringly.

Sighing, Will throws the pokéball, bracing himself as the beam of red light materializes a rock-like pokémon that just looks back at him square in the eye before glancing around.

"Where's Hunter?" The question is clearly directed at Adelaide, but Will flinches.

"Your trainer hurt mine!" the starly is trembling under the orange glow of the fire, but she still gives a small jump forward, and the geodude frowns. "Tell him, Will!"

"I—I…"

Geodude turns his eyes toward him, still frowning. Will wants to run away and hide. But the geodude looks away suddenly, one his rocky hands slapping his own head as he takes in the stuff still scattered around Will's backpack and the thick blanket, now neatly folded.

"And is he okay?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?" The geodude asks when Adelaide only glared and Will stumbled over his own words.

"What's it to _you_ how he is?!" Adelaide growls, using her wing to poke the geodude between the eyes.

The geodude doesn't even react to the provocation. He only blinks and apologizes for his trainer's actions like they were his own. Will swallows and nods, accepting that this pokémon really didn't have anything to do with what happened to him.

"Wait, wait!" Will calls in a shouting whisper when the geodude turns to leave. The pokémon looks back at him, clearly taken aback. "Where are you going?"

"Away," It's clear he can't bring himself to look at the boy in the eye.

"But it's… it's dangerous out there if you're by yourself!"

"Will…" Adelaide starts, warning.

"Listen to her, child. You don't want me with you. I've known of what my master does for a while, but I never tried to stop it. Whatever is happening out there, I deserve it."

Will can't even correct the tense of that sentence. "No, you—"

"Just let him go, Will."

"Listen, just… just come with us until we find somewhere safer, all right? Then you can leave if you want." Will ignores Adelaide's eye roll. He just can't know something, someone else would die and it would be his fault.

The geodude looks just about ready to deny him, but then sighs, looking up briefly before lowering his eyes again. "Just until we get somewhere safe."

"I promise."

"My name is John, but—"

Then Adelaide presses the button of geodude's pokéball and John disappears in a beam of red light, and refuses to answer when Will asks her why she didn't even let him finish talking.

"Are we going to keep walking or what?"

The words are harsh, but Will starts to move, zipping up his bag and throwing it over his shoulders before he starts walking. Though she is clearly angry, Adelaide follows him closely, watching out for new threats. Whatever they might be, Will knows that, this time, he'll take her words to heart.

Zuzu stirs, and Will tries his best to shush him when he starts looking around, anxiously grabbing onto Will's jacket.

"I'm sorry!" Zuzu cries, ignoring Will's attempts to calm him. He moves until he's sitting up in Will's arms, paws trying to touch the boy's face, rubbing his cheeks and wrapping short arms around the boy's neck. "I tried to stop him! I _really_ did!"

Will sucks in a breath because he doesn't know what else to do. He awkwardly pats Zuzu on the back, but doesn't say anything else, only shuffles closer to the wall with the torches, watching for any hidden passages on the rock.

 **{…}**

Will doesn't sleep. He can't, finds it impossible to even settle down for a few minutes. By the time they all leave the cave, the sun is high in the air, but Will sees nothing but brown rock ahead of him. He wonders, for a second, if he's imagining it. Oreburgh is supposed to be just outside—just _here_.

His pokémon look just as hesitant, but they walk ahead, if just because Will won't.

It's worse than he expected. The brown stone had once been the street, the splashes of white brick and blue wood, houses. There's more tinges of blue—plastic and metal he can just make out among the rubble, and when he comes to investigate, Adelaide's feet claw hard at his shoulder as hot air whistles out of the vent and blows out into their faces.

When there's no siren and the sky doesn't darken with the shadow of attack planes, Will keeps looking. There has to be something here. Emery has to have gone through here.

He sees the body of a girl smaller than him, her head crushed under a pile of rocks, and hopes that Emery went the other way, toward the north, instead. Under his feet, he sees blood, and when he steps back, his sneaker lands on a torn arm, and Will grimaces, breath hitching and eyes startlingly bright.

"Let's go that way." Will doesn't have time to rationalize that Adelaide must be pointing in a completely random direction, he just obeys, and Zuzu nuzzles his chest in an attempt at comfort.

His pace gets more frantic when he realizes the bodies are everywhere, that he cannot outrun them because they are underneath him, caught off guard like the teachers and shopkeepers and neighbors from Twinleaf.

"Over there!" Zuzu jumps out of Will's hold, pointing an arm toward a subterranean hollow on the ground.

The chimchar's smile is gentle as he waves them over, but Will doesn't have time. He rushes and jumps through the opening, breathing shallow. Everything catches up to him at once: the raw smell of burning flesh, the hunger, the blood smeared all over, the disgusting touches from the man that he killed not six hours ago—and vomits all over the floor at his feet.

The punch is unexpected. He screams, choking back a sob, and holds his side. It hurts too much to look up, but he can hear Adelaide coming to a halt in front of him just as Zuzu glows. He can't see exactly what's happening, but for a second, the darkness lifts, and the bloodied face of a young man comes to view before the geodude that hit him cries out and a beam of red light retrieves him, then there's another flash of red, and Will can feel the ground shake beneath the new pokémon.

Slowly, the boy sits up, still wincing and clutching at his ribs. It's hard to breathe, hard to see without lights. His world becomes soft around the edges, but he knows enough to understand Zuzu's frame is larger than before.

"What…?"

"He _evolved_." Adelaide sounds astounded, and why wouldn't she be? Evolution is not the norm. Evolution takes skill and years. But apparently, desperation and protectiveness are enough. "He evolved to help you."

She still seems stuck on that bit, and as his eyes adjust, Will can see just how she's looking between them, uncertain, startled.

"He… you're…"

Will tries to tune her out, to try to pinpoint the guy he saw earlier. He can see the vague silhouette of a giant snake, and the slight flashes of gray reveal the boulders the make up the body. But the onix is slow, and Zuzu is quick, and agile and hungry. With a fist, he breaks one of the boulders that have to be part of the onix's tail, and backs down, moving away to stand between the pokémon and his trainer.

"Shit," It's the man he saw, it has to be, and Will tries to scramble back, as far away as he can from the voice.

Suddenly, Zuzu grunts heavily, crashing down, and before him stands yet another pokémon. Gray and blue and reading for another attack.

"Move!" Adelaide cries over at Zuzu, but the cranidos is already on him, smashing against his chin with a hardened skull, and Will struggles to stand up, to get between them.

"Zuzu!"

Zuzu isn't moving. He just lies there, and the cranidos is moving again, talons digging into the rock beneath them.

"Stop!" He doesn't know if he's yelling at the pokémon or at the man, but he has to move. Zuzu isn't moving, Zuzu isn't moving, _zuzuisn'tmoving_. There's a blur, a cry, and Will realizes he's falling, but he can't move, can't do anything to stop it.

As the soft edges of his world turn his vision to cotton, Will reaches out to his pokémon.

 **{…}**

"I'm really sorry,"

Are the first words Will hears when he wakes up, again to a dim world of orange and red highlights. He's close enough to the fire that he feels the warmth soak through his skin, and he feels like going back to sleep, to let the darkness pull him under.

"He tried to take off your shirt, but we didn't let him!" Zuzu… is it really Zuzu? He's so much bigger, tiny paws replaced by thick, heavy fists. His chin, where the small rock pokémon had hit him, is sewn shut, but the placid smile is the same as his starter snuggles close to him.

"He did bandage you, though. You shouldn't move, you're hurt."

That's Adelaide, and Will opens his eyes abruptly as he remembers that Zuzu was hurt, was unmoving, eerily still. Will startles up, jostling Zuzu, who complains, and his own ribs, which scream just as strong hands grab him by the shoulders, pushing him back down.

Will yells, kicking out until the person groans and backs away. Will takes the opportunity to sit up correctly and scoot away, breathing through clenched teeth.

"See how he never listens to me?" Out of the corner of his eye, Will sees Adelaide pointing at him with her wing. Next to her, a zubat tries to make himself smaller.

"Hey, it's okay."

"You get away from me!" But the guy who spoke—who held him down, who attacked him in the first place—has lifted his hands in a non-threatening gesture. And does back away, slightly, though it's clear he still wants to be in close proximity to the fire.

"Okay! Okay. Look, I'm… I'm sorry, really. I—I didn't mean to… I thought you were…" But the guy trails off, and when none of his pokémon move to help him, Will tries to see him more closely. He looks young. Not close to his age, not even close to Emery's, but young, still.

"It's true, Will. He told us. They've been taking people from the mines to… to hurt them." Zuzu is placating, and when he touches his knee, Will doesn't even flinch.

"I still say he shouldn't have attacked us."

"He didn't know!" Zuzu is trying to sound reasonable, even to Adelaide, who is apparently beyond that point. But the starly clicks her beak shut and nods, clearly accepting Zuzu's words even though she didn't like them.

"I'm…" The man starts again, hesitantly extending his arm toward Will. "I'm Roark. Duval. Roark Duval. Again, I'm sorry. You can… stay here, uhm, until your ribs heal, if you want, but… but… have you heard of what's been happening in Oreburgh? I don't know if they're still broadcasting…"

The man clenches and unclenches his fists when he speaks, looking at everything but at the boy in front of him, and Will can't help but think the man is odd. Not threatening, perhaps, but definitely odd.

"He's safe, promise." Adelaide says. The boy finally takes the man's hand.

"I'm Will. Will Pierce."

Roark snorts and then clears his throat, raising his hand. "Sorry, not funny. But uh, really you should lay back down. Cole hurt your ribs pretty bad."

Will doesn't lay back down. Instead, he looks over to Adelaide, who seems to understand his silent question, and points to the zubat.

"He's Ronan," she says "He saved Zuzu."

The zubat in question covers his face with his wings, and Will tries to smile.

"Thanks, Ronan."

"You're not from here, are you? I've never seen you before." Roark asks.

Will shakes his head, not saying anything else.

"Then why did you come here? Did they say it was safe? I… the alarm was on just yesterday…!"

"I'm just looking for my friend."

"Oh," Roark looks awkward, in a stage between relief and disappointment. "Why did your friend come here? Where is he headed?"

Will is surprised that Roark doesn't ask him about his parents, everyone else does.

"I don't know if he did. We were supposed to look for his dad together…"

Roark deflates at that answer, but it's clear he's still trying to be helpful. Zuzu crawls over and leans across Will's legs, trying to sleep.

"What's his name? Your… your friend's dad."

"Oh, uh. Palmer, I think."

Roark's eyes widen, and he gets closer, but when Will threatens to move away, the man stops. He still stares at Will, surprised.

"Palmer." He repeats. "Not Tower Tycoon Palmer?" When Will doesn't respond, Roark backs off, just a little. "Last I heard, Tower Tycoon Palmer was at the Battle Frontier. If… if you want to go with your friend you might have to go through the Pokémon League… if that's still a thing."

Then Roark shuts his mouth and looks down, face burning red. And Will doesn't know what to do, hadn't thought about what it would require for him to get to Emery, to Palmer. He's not sure if Emery's thought about it either.

"How bad are your ribs?" Adelaide pips.

"How bad are my ribs?" Will parrots.

Roark smiles thankfully at the change in topic, but he's still clearly embarrassed. He scratches at the back of his neck, and Will is surprised at the thick muscles on the arm, because Roark comes off as shy, awkward, and there's nothing that speaks of… well this.

"They're… ah… just, wait a few days, all right? Before leaving, I mean. They're not broken, I think, but…" He gestures at the entirety of Will torso with vague movements of his hands, apparently not managing to find the right word.

"How many days?"

Roark pauses at Will's question, then shrugs helplessly. "I'm not sure. I don't even know if I was supposed to wrap your wounds, but there was this cut…" more flailing "You… does it feel okay to breathe?"

Will takes in a big gulp of air before letting it back out. His side, again, stings, but there's no pressure that particularly opposes to his actions. He squints at the man but nods. He feels heavy, so he finally obeys Roark, lying down on the blanket the man presumably had laid out for him.

 **{…}**

The next time Will wakes up, Zuzu's weight is heavy on his chest. Adelaide, Evangeline and Ronan are all piled up together next to him, and the fire is nothing but a dying ember. He doesn't know, for a second, what made him wake up: his side feels fine, if a little numb, and the dizziness is out of his system.

Then there's a muffled sob, and Will flinches. He sits up slowly because he's afraid to hurt himself, looking around so he can try to pinpoint the sound. A whimper, and Will finally turns his head, only to find Roark lying down in a mess of a quilt, face buried in his arms.

"Are you okay?"

Will's words only make the man tense. He's not wearing a shirt, so Will can see strong muscles coiled fiercely as Roark attempts to calm himself down enough to respond. In the half light, Roark looks much younger, but he still tries to smile, as if having Will seeing him cry will only make everything worse.

"Yeah. Are you? I—I can… are you hurt?" At this, Roark closes his eyes in the way Will has seen people do when they realize they have made a mistake. "I mean, of course you're hurt, but, I—does it _hurt_?"

Will shakes his head, carefully pulling Zuzu to his lap; he's much heavier, now. He spends a couple of seconds caressing the new blue markings on his monferno's fur.

"Okay. Then, ah… go to sleep, all right? I think… I think you'll heal faster that way." Then Roark goes back to face away from Will, face once again tucked between his arms.

As it is, Will disobeys.

For the next five days, Will stays awake even though he's well-aware that it is ridiculous to do so. In that time, he takes advantage that most of his pokémon are asleep and pulls John out of his pokéball. Each night, the geodude looks steadily away from him, and Will mostly just sits there awkwardly, patting his head even though it's clear they both want nothing more than back away from each other.

Still, Will tries.

On the dawn of the sixth day, Roark takes the stitches from Zuzu's chin. The man grimaces, petting the monferno on the head, and turns to Will.

"He's going to have a nasty scar." His words are hollow, he has dark bags under his eyes. "I'm sorry I'm not very good at this. At least… at least you're doing fine, right?"

Will nods, though it's clear he hasn't been sleeping. His own wound closed nicely enough, even if there is a thin scar and the pain on his ribs isn't completely gone. For his part, Zuzu looks placid even with the scar marring his face.

"I was… thinking of leaving." Will says.

"Oh."

And there's really not much else to say.

Roark helps him pack, and Will gives him one of the blankets he took away from the night at Oreburgh's gate. It's a relief to part with it, and Will discreetly wipes his hands on the rock of the cave after Roark takes it.

The man stares at it, and then he starts to laugh. It's a wet, scary sound, and Roark breathes in, trying and failing to keep Will from seeing his tears. Adelaide lands firmly on Will's shoulder, and Zuzu and Ronan approach too, Zuzu keeping an eye on the man. Evangeline simply sleeps on, tiny on top of Will's backpack.

"You—here." And Roark takes Will's hand, holding it firmly when Will tries to flinch away from him. He shakes his wrist a little, and Will finally admits defeat, uncurling his fingers from his palm. The man places a cool, almost-round piece of metal in his hand.

It takes Will a couple of moments to react, then he looks down. It's shaped like a boulder, or a pokéball or maybe both. Two types of metal have been welded together, and where the outline is silver, the middle is a dull brown.

"Wha—"

"You defeated me." Roark says, not looking up from the badge "So I present you the coal badge. It… I don't know if it even means anything anymore, but you should take it anyway."

When Will doesn't do anything, Roark takes the badge from Will's hand and stuffs it inside Will's pocket. Will immediately puts his hand in his pocket, closing a fist around the badge.

"Thanks." He says. He knows that if it does mean something, Will is now a step closer to catching up to Emery at the Battle Frontier.

Roark nods. "If—if you're gonna keep going, show it to the Gym Leader of Canalave City. Tell him I'm not dead yet."

Adelaide sinks her talons into Will's shoulder, but Will doesn't notice the strange wording, he just nods, stands up, and starts picking his things up until Roark volunteers to lead him back to where Will first jumped into the construction site.

 **{E N D - 0 0 4}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 5; Deaths| 0**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Monferno  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 17

 **Name|** Adelaide  
 **Species|** Starly  
 **Nature|** Timid  
 **Characteristic|** Proud of her power  
 **Ability|** Keen Eye  
 **Level|** 12

 **Name|** Evangeline  
 **Species|** Shinx  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Somewhat stubborn  
 **Ability|** Intimidate  
 **Level|** 11

 **Name|** Ronan  
 **Species|** Zubat  
 **Nature|** Bashful  
 **Characteristic|** Happily eats anything  
 **Ability|** Inner Focus  
 **Level|** 8

 **Name|** John  
 **Species|** Geodude  
 **Nature|** Lonely  
 **Characteristic|** Scatters things often  
 **Ability|** Rock head  
 **Level|** 5


	5. The Echo You Created

Not much to say about this one.

Title: Container, by Fiona Apple

* * *

 **005\. The Echo You Created (outlasts my last breath)**

At first, Will continues to lead his pokémon toward Mount Coronet. He keeps his eyes up, toward the mountain, and only winces slightly when he feels something too soft under his feet. Evangeline is walking steadily ahead of him, undisturbed by the bodies that surround her. Next to her, Zuzu easily picks her up when he needs to, or otherwise distracts her when the blood is too visible from over the rubble that Oreburgh has become.

"It's not like she knows what's up," Adelaide, says, rolling her eyes. "He doesn't need to do that."

She's perched on Will's left shoulder, and Ronan timidly grips the boy around the neck with his wings. At this, Will doesn't know what to do: the feeling of something so close to his neck is disturbing, makes his pulse jump every time the zubat so much as moves. Ronan notices, and he loosens his hold on Will just a bit.

"But… she was so scared when we found her," Will's voice wavers, looking around for the tower that sends out the distress signals. He can't see any, and that worries him. There could be an oncoming attack right that second and Will would just be an easy target.

"Yeah, and you're scared now, what of it?"

"You're not scared?"

Adelaide pauses and tilts her head lightly toward the sky. Her whole body shivers, her feathers fluffing out as she attempts a full-body shrug.

"I'm just glad to be out of those bushes."

"The bushes Zuzu found you in?" Adelaide bristles, turning to eye Ronan, whose face is buried in the back of Will's neck.

"Yes. Yes, those bushes." Adelaide grunts, rolling her eyes. "My flock was way too big, and it was annoying with all those hatchlings around." At her words, Will feels a pang in his chest and his eyes finally tear away from the mountain.

He tries not to think back to Twinleaf, to the pain that made his head spin for weeks in the end. He blinks, focusing gray eyes on Zuzu and Evangeline, and tries not to think of his mom's hand covered in blood or the way her kangaskhan burned like a funeral pyre.

Will feels the bitter flavor of bile crawling up his throat, and he swallows, the corners of his mouth pulling down automatically.

"Are you gonna throw up again?" Adelaide asks, looking at him warily. At this, Zuzu looks back from where he's helping the tiny shinx keep her balance over a few lose rocks.

"Wi—"

Zuzu slips, dragging Evangeline down him, and Will snaps out of his thoughts as he surges forward to get to them. It's a steep slope, and even though Will is kneeling at the edge, his hand slides down the slippery sand, and he struggles to scramble back to firm land.

"Zuzu, are you okay?!" When Will manages to look, his head poking out toward the bottom of the pit, Zuzu has stood up, though he's rubbing what little he can reach of his back. Evangeline is shaking herself to get rid of the sand that clings to her fur.

"Yes. Don't worry, Will!" Zuzu chimes, and Will takes the chance to look around the terrain. Besides the dent Zuzu and Evangeline fell in, there is no other way to keep going. The ground is broken up in sandy pieces that they would surely slip on.

Will purses his lips and then turns to Adelaide, biting his lip.

"Can you get us across?"

Adelaide lets out an indignant squeak, nudging Ronan with her wing. "Not _you_ ," she says, pointing at Will and rolling her eyes "you're way too heavy."

"Oh."

Adelaide and Ronan ignore him, carefully flying down to the ditch the others fell in.

"Zuzu, you carry Eve—No, just one hand, stupid, and grab Ronan's leg." When the monferno does, she sinks her paws into Zuzu's other arm. He hisses, but Adelaide shakes him painfully. "Be quiet, you. Ronan, on three, we both try to put them up over there." She says, pointing to a spot next to Will. "One, two—Three!"

With their wing powers combined, Adelaide and Ronan can only barely lift the monferno and shinx. Ronan screeches, and Adelaide grunts and flaps her wings faster. Ronan quickly imitates her, and Will, carefully holding onto firm ground, reaches out once they are close enough, wrapping his arm around Zuzu and trying to swing him closer to the ledge.

Zuzu uses the momentum to jump, landing between Will's legs. He quickly grabs his trainer's ankle, effortlessly pulling him away from the edge and waiting for Adelaide and Ronan to land in an exhausted heap beside them.

"Thanks!" Zuzu says. He waits for Will to sit up, then hands him Evangeline and goes over to pat the starly and zubat's heads.

Will cradles Evangeline in his arms, stroking her fur until she's burrowing her head in his chest.

"Well, can't go that way," Adelaide sighs, vaguely pointing her wing toward Mt. Coronet. "So where should we go, Will?"

Will sniffles and motions for Zuzu to jump to his lap, which the pokémon does without question. Will sighs contently at the warmth and hugs Zuzu closer to him, making sure Evangeline is sandwiched between them.

" _Will!_ " The boy snaps back to attention, looking around in quick glances. "Will, where are we going now?"

"I…" Will hesitates. "If the way through Mount Coronet is closed then…" He falters, fidgeting uncomfortably. "We have to go back to Jubilife. And… and then toward Eterna City. There's… like… a power plant in the way and everything."

"But you said we shouldn't go back to Jubilife!" Zuzu complains softly.

"Well, I'm—better, now… I think. Maybe Team Galactic will let me join now! And if they don't we can just… run again, you know?"

Ronan cannot stare at Will, but he does manage to face in his general direction, and stays there before faltering, holding onto Adelaide.

"Fine," Adelaide says, throwing her wings to the air as if to get herself rid of the responsibility of this decision. "Let's go, then."

{…}

It's an admittedly rough trip back to Jubilife. They all but fly through the cave Hunter attacked them in, but even then Zuzu remains tense the entire time, so Will takes to play and carry Evangeline around to shake the cold off his skin. When wild pokémon attack and Evangeline struggles to get at them, Will holds back everyone else and lets her go while the others wait tense on the sidelines.

"Why is he doing that?" Ronan whispers to Adelaide, making sure nobody else can hear him. Adelaide only shrugs, because hell if she knows how this boy's brains work. Still, the question stays with her and so she perches on his shoulders just as the bright lights from the billboards start to shine in the horizon.

"You, why are you letting Eve fight, you?" At this, Will tries to make himself smaller, though he doesn't shake Adelaide away from his shoulder.

"I just…" Will flinches as he thinks back of bloodthirsty scythers and the smell of smoke takes over his senses.

"So she learns how to fight, right Will?" Zuzu pipes up. He latches to Will's pant leg to tug lightly and Will jumps, shaking his leg so Zuzu lets him go.

"Yeah," He says shakily, and Adelaide grits the front of her beak.

"Great. First you ignore me about that dickhead, and now you send the baby in to fight. Well done, _William_."

Will lurches. There's wet in his breathing, and his hands curl into fists. He halts even though he knows they are already in the city, that he only has to walk a few more meters and ignore Adelaide and the cave is already behind them.

" _Don't call me that!_ " Will roars. The volume scratches painfully at his throat, and his chest is heavy with the pressure of the words. There's wet when his breathing becomes ragged, and then he blinks and there's wet on his face too and he uses the heels of his hands and his knuckles to scrub it away.

Adelaide startles enough to lose her balance when Will whirls violently, and she lands on the ground as softly as she can. Zuzu is on Will's face immediately, hooking powerful arms around Will's neck and breathing in deep to increase his body temperature.

Will seems to go weak at the knees, and soon the boy is on the ground and Zuzu is on his lap and Adelaide, Ronan and Evangeline are all standing a little to the side, watching and not knowing what to do.

"William?" And Will sways again at the new voice, covering his ears and burying his head on his knees so fast Zuzu has to jump away or risk hurting him.

A man kneels next to him, and though Adelaide wants to push him away, Zuzu only smiles at him before looking back at his trainer. Adelaide studies him while she can; he's tall and overweight, though that is probably from old age—his hair is white as snow and his moustache prominent—.

"William, what's the matter, child?" The man tries again, hands resting on the boy's shoulders. Will springs away from him, and he knows he looks like a mess with the scar on his temple that bites into his hairline and the tears running down his face and his flushed skin. "My boy, it will be fine. Come, I have managed to acquire a room and Dawn is staying with me for the time being. Why don't you come in and we can discuss whatever is happening to you—"

"I don't wanna talk! I just want my mom!" And then Will is crying all over again and Professor Rowan can only look confused as people start gathering around them to watch. Zuzu wraps his arms around the boy again, though the position is awkward from the way Will keeps trying to curl himself into a ball.

"He's just scared and tired." Zuzu explains, looking around at the crowd that's now standing in a circle around them, and then up at the professor.

Professor Rowan pauses, hands hovering, and moves his eyes to stare directly at Zuzu. "Chimchar?"

Zuzu smiles as he rubs his trainer's back, nodding.

"You—"

"Just _what_ is going on here?!" The new voice is loud and Will cringes. Zuzu holds him even tighter, and now Professor Rowan steps closer to them, as do Will's other pokémon.

Two soldiers in white uniforms shoulder their way through the crowd until they can see what the commotion is about. Except they can't. They only see a man and a crying child and some pokémon snarling at them.

One of them, the woman, practically snarls back at the pokémon.

"Yo, gramps. You need to control your grandson. He's freaking everyone out," The other soldier snaps.

"Listen to him, old man!" The woman says, stepping closer to them. Professor Rowan quickly holds Will away, grabbing him and pulling him toward him. Will struggles, and Zuzu rubs his face to Will's chest until he calms down slightly. "Fuck this. We've been in this city for weeks and people are still too scared to join us against Kanto. Your shithead of a kid is only going to make things worse! Shut him up or I'll shut him up for you!"

Professor Rowan doesn't skip a beat. "Quiet, you lot! The boy wouldn't be acting like this if you shared your rations with the rest of us. He hasn't eaten in days. That is the only reason you're here—to protect the citizens, not to terrorize them. If you learned _that_ then perhaps you would acquire more troops for your cause."

The male soldier grits his teeth and gives a step forward. Adelaide chirps obscenities that the man doesn't understand as she settles between the soldiers and his trainer, puffing herself as much as she can to appear bigger, more threatening. Next to her, tiny little Evangeline yowls in an attempt to imitate Adelaide.

This only makes the soldiers angrier. They reach to their belts, fists tightening around their pokéballs, and move to throw them in the air.

"Halt, you two." It's not overly loud, but the command has a notable ring of power to it. This time, the crowd around them shushes as the person continues "Garrett."

The arms holding Will let go of him. Will can hear the rustle of clothing as the Professor straightens his back and looks straight back at the person he's talking to. "Cyrus".

At the name, Will dimly looks up. And there he is, the leader of the Galactic Forces, white uniform pristine and golden G stitched proudly to the breast. Slowly, Will disentangles from himself, grabbing onto Zuzu and clearly more aware than what he was minutes before.

"Professor of Pokémon." Cyrus uses the title, but he's not looking at Professor Rowan, but at his soldiers, his lip curled down in disapproval. "Were these soldiers being disorderly?"

"A nuisance, more like," The Professor huffs "Thinking they were strong because they were in a group, and raising their voice when this poor child couldn't stop crying."

At the mention of the boy, Cyrus finally turns to acknowledge him. There's clearly some recognition there, and Cyrus ventures: "The boy from the lake."

His words clearly make an impression on the crowd, who has, for weeks, been watching the footage of Will being cradled by Cyrus to get away from Twinleaf. The murmurs around them raise in volume and pitch, and out of the corner of his eye, Will can see someone dressed as a reporter snapping pictures like he had a way of actually publishing them. Behind Cyrus is once again a cameraman, filming Will's tear-stained face as he nods to Cyrus' prompt.

Around him, Will's pokémon look utterly confused.

Cyrus nods back at Will and offers his hands to help the boy and Professor to their feet. Will looks up at him with wide eyes.

There should be something unsettling about Cyrus' face, about the coldness on his voice, but the sternness of the man's expression makes Will feel light as a feather, and the lack of inflection in his words is like a blanket being wrapped around him. This man carried him away from the fire and smoke and into Sandgem. Led the expedition that saved his life.

When Professor Rowan tries to touch his shoulder, Will flinches away from him, but he steps closer to Cyrus. Cyrus' brow furrows slightly, his head tilting to the side.

"Sir, I can join you!" Will says. Adelaide almost slaps her own face when she hears him.

"Pardon?"

"I can!" Will insists. From the back of his head, he can hear something telling him to shut the fuck up, that there are cameras and people and he shouldn't do this at all. "Look! My chimchar evolved, and I can help you!"

A woman in the crowd coos at him. The guy with the camera cheers as he moves around to get some different angles in his pictures, and the cameraman behind Cyrus also moves a little; enough that Will can see the logo of Jubilife TV stitched to his vest.

"Child, I cannot take you into my ranks because it is kids like you who I'm trying to protect," Cyrus says, though his tone doesn't change. "You should go with the Professor."

"But—!"

"Just quit it, boy!" Adelaide chirps, and Will finally backs down.

He sets his sight on his sneakers and nods sadly at Cyrus, who pats his shoulder rather awkwardly.

"Garrett, I will be going now. But you seem capable of maintain order. Perhaps you will see it fit to helping me manage this city?"

Professor Rowan purses his lips. "I'm afraid I would have to be younger to do as you say."

Cyrus doesn't say anything, only nods, and leaves the way he came from as the crowd opens a path for him. His two soldiers follow when he signals for them to do so, each on either side on him while the cameraman leads the way.

"Will—" Professor Rowan trails off when he remembers the boy's reaction to his name.

"Will, we should go with the Professor!" Zuzu says, looking between them.

The crowd around them begins to disperse, so the Professor tries to get closer to the boy again. He's stopped by Adelaide and Evangeline, who snarl and chirp and curse up at him. Ronan makes his way to Will instead, flying close to him until the boy opens his arms in an invitation.

"But… But we need to catch up to Emery," Will tells Zuzu. His fingers scratch Ronan's head, and the zubat leans into the touch.

"But you're tired! Ellie, tell him he has to rest!" Zuzu turns around to call out to the starly, and the starly jumps.

"Ellie? Tch," She whispers under her breath, but does look back at them "Come on, kid. You _really_ want to spend the night with an old man _again_?" Will closes his eyes and folds into himself again, and all Ronan can do not to be crushed is burrow into the hollow between the boy's legs and torso.

"The Professor isn't like that!" Zuzu yells.

"'Again?'" Professor Rowan repeats slowly.

Adelaide startles and whirls around to glare at the Professor. The man is not looking at her, though, focused instead on the hunched figure of the boy and the monferno beside him.

"Mesprit, lad. Are you okay?" Professor Rowan asks just as Adelaide briskly asks Zuzu why he didn't tell her the man could understand them.

Will stays quiet. After a few moments, he shrugs his shoulders. Zuzu tugs at Rowan's coat, and dark eyes struggle to tear away from the sight of this boy that he allowed to get hurt.

"Professor, can we go to your room now? Will is going to be fine, promise! I'll protect him!" Zuzu's enthusiasm is out of place considering what the boy has been through, but Rowan tells himself there must be an explanation for all this. That there is a chance what happened was not as bad as the starly made it out to be. Or how he imagined it to be, really, since the starly merely hinted.

"That would be acceptable," He says, clearing his throat. "Will. Can you stand?"

"He better do. I'm not carrying him." Adelaide says as she approaches. Evangeline follows her, then nudges her head to Will's leg when she reaches him.

At this, Will finally nods and struggles to get to his feet. His eyes linger on the concrete, mouth pursed. He bites his lip, though he tries to pretend he's not, and hunches his shoulders when Zuzu only looks at him for a second before falling into step next to the Professor.

And Rowan is patient. He walks ahead of him to show him the way because he understands Will doesn't want to be touched, doesn't want anyone to be near him unless he trusts them completely, and clearly Rowan hasn't earned that. The Professor tries to remind himself that, though this boy looks a lot like Dawn, he has known that girl almost since she was born, and this child is still an unknown; that they lived under the same roof for a few weeks before Will left, that they have not seen each other far, far longer.

Instead, the Professor settles for listening to Zuzu blabber on, as he always has, and it's only when they reach his building that the man leans down, frown newly in place, and strokes his thumb under Zuzu's chin.

"And where did you get this?"

At the contact with the new scar, Zuzu closes his eyes, but stays still so the Professor can look at it.

"Cole and I fought," Zuzu explains. Rowan looks over at Will's other pokémon and quickly determines that none of them could make a scar quite like this.

"I see." The Professor doesn't really see, can't quite understand why Zuzu would call another pokémon by name when they hurt him so. From his pocket he pulls out a key and opens the door before stepping aside, allowing his guests to walk in first.

Zuzu does so immediately, but Will only follows when Adelaide perches on his shoulder and Evangeline bounces in so quickly that she almost trips him. Ronan stays back a bit, but obeys when the Professor shoos him inside.

Rowan's apartment is quite clearly the result of a salvaging and rebuilding effort. The side of the wall would have a hole in it if it wasn't covered with wooden beams. Some of the furniture belonged to the last tenant, Will can tell because they match, but everything else is mostly dirty or burnt or two pieces of different bunches of scraps welded together.

Will makes it a full three steps into the apartment before the shrill cry drowns him, and suddenly there's a pair of arms wrapped tightly around his neck and his face is nestled against the fur linings of a winter coat. Will struggles, but the arms only let him go when Evangeline tackles their owner and Zuzu has to grab her by the sides to keep her from doing it again.

"Dawn, be a dear and try not to touch the lad for the time being."

When Will looks up, he's met with Dawn's disappointed face and a vague sense of apprehension. Dawn's face, like his, is smeared with dirt, but only lightly so. Her winter coat is no longer the bright pink it was back in Sandgem, or even how it was when he saw her in the basement of the Pokémon Center, but there's still distinct color to it. There's a bruise on her jaw but mostly she looks upset that Will rejected her hug.

"You just left, Will Pierce!" She's frowning, hands balled at her hips. The bruise in her jaw shines against her pale skin, and Will knows that if he's not careful she would be willing to punch him.

"I had to find Emery. Have," Will mutters, looking at the floor and refusing to move his eyes away from the shiny wood on the sofa's leg.

"You could have said something!"

Will stays still because Dawn is right, he could have. He honestly didn't even think about her when he slipped through the basement window. Before will knows it, he has drawn his shoulders into a hunch that strains his back muscles and tugs a little at his injured side.

Then Evangeline is growling from Zuzu's arms and the monferno has to put up a fight to keep her from escaping.

"Dawn Elise, that's enough," Rowan finally snaps, though his tone of voice doesn't change and his arms are still neatly folded behind his back. Will steps further away from the man, and Rowan sighs. "I didn't mean to scare you, William."

"He doesn't like to be called that," Zuzu interjects, putting Evangeline back on her feet when she looks like she's no longer planning to bite Dawn's ankles. "But just Will is fine, right, Will?"

Instead of answering, Will holds out his hand and Zuzu takes the invitation, rubbing his head against it. "Will! Will, ask her where Mei is!"

"I, uhm. Zuzu wants to know where Mei is."

Dawn is still very much leering at him, so Will keeps his eyes on the carpet and only moves to pick Evangeline from the floor when she starts to yawn. He cradles her against his chest, and it is only then that Dawn's frown melts away, leaning in to coo over the shinx that had tried to attack her.

Clearly, Dawn has the self-preservation instincts of a pachirisu.

"Mei is asleep in Dawn's room, Zuzu," The Professor says, and Zuzu leaps up, grin stretching across his face.

"Thanks! Adelaide, Ronan, come on!" Zuzu goes over and pulls Adelaide's wing before she snatches it back. Will remembers that that wing was hurt not too long ago, and tells himself he needs to remember to check on it. When Adelaide slaps Zuzu's hand away with the softer feathers of her wing, Zuzu's smile doesn't falter, and the monferno instead grabs Ronan so he can pull both of them down the hallway.

With Dawn cooing at Evangeline, Will can't do much else than stand there, looking oddly clumsy for someone that's not even moving. To him, even his breathing sounds and seems inept, and the Professor clearly catches sight of it—or of _something_ , at least—and clears his throat.

Will jumps even though Garrett Rowan is standing at the far end of the attached kitchen, hands still folded at the small of his back to appear as unthreatening as possible.

"I would offer you a shower," the Professor says "But I'm afraid we don't have running water. I could go to fetch a bucket, however, if you pleased."

The boy shakes his head so hard his vision swims, and suddenly Dawn doesn't seem half as safe as she did and Will tugs Evangeline out of her grasp to bury her deeper in his chest.

Dawn frowns lightly and puffs out her cheeks, blowing a raspberry. The Professor looks categorically unimpressed.

"Dawn, your father would be very disappointed in you. I am well aware he tried to raise you to be a proper lady, now, didn't he?" Rowan says, because it sounds nothing like the question it is worded out to be.

The girl's brow furrows even deeper at that and she turns, hands on her hips and tongue like fire "Well, he's not here, is he? And you wouldn't lecture Will Pierce if he did it!"

Will's name sounds like stones when it comes from Dawn's mouth, and he has to resist the instinct to cringe. He's not sure why she's saying it like that, a shortened version of his given name and his last name spilled like poison, but he knows he doesn't like it. Emery calls him Will Pierce, but not because he's angry, but because he likes him, and he liked his name. It sounds like a virus when Dawn says it.

Professor Rowan looks like he's having a hard time not rolling his eyes. "Will is not a young lady," he says.

"And how would you know?!" Dawn spits "You haven't asked!"

Will thinks he this isn't a conversation he should be listening to, but the front door is locked, his pokémon in another room, and he doesn't like the darkness that swallows the hallway so as to go get them.

Professor Rowan sighs, clearly deciding this is not a battle he wants to fight tonight. Through the window, Will can see the orange light of the sunset and comes to realize the apartment will be washed in black soon enough.

"Will," Professor Rowan says, detouring the attention he had put in Dawn. "You wouldn't happen to be allergic to Moomoo milk, would you?"

{…}

In the span of dinnertime, Will comes to learn several things:

1\. There is no electricity in the apartment.  
2\. The reason there's no electricity in the apartment is because the Galactic Forces need it to broadcast their announcements to the entirety of Sinnoh (which makes sense to Will, even if he can hear the disapproval in Professor Rowan's voice).  
3\. Dawn's parents both joined the Galactic Forces and are now somewhere in Veilstone or Celestic, no one is really sure.  
4\. Sometimes, Dawn goes out bare-handed and returns with food and scratches and shiny bruises to show for it.  
5\. Even if he's not allergic, Moomoo milk does make Will feel a little bloated, so he probably shouldn't drink it either way.

From where he's lying on the couch, stolen blanket wrapped around him, Will tries not to think about any of these things. He wants to sleep before the candle next to him burns out completely and he's left in absolute darkness.

"Hey, Will, are you awake?"

Will finally stops pretending Dawn is not sitting on the floor across from him, a surprisingly clean notebook on her lap and a pencil in her hand. He's not sure how she can draw in the dim light, but when he looks up, Will sees that the orange hues of the fire make her a little more unthreatening. It's weird. Fire is a threat, fire is fear. Fire means smoke, and smoke means fumes in his lungs and difficulty breathing.

"Yeah," Will says, or he thinks he says. Monferno is curled to his chest, and Evangeline rests on his hip because his side still hurts. Ronan is half draped over Adelaide, who's in front of the couch protectively. Will tries not to think about the geodude somewhere on his bag.

Dawn hums, tilts her head to the side and squints, then draws something else. "You say things weird."

"No, I don't," Will whispers. He shifts a little and stops so he won't knock Evangeline down.

"You just did it again." There's a smile on her voice, so Will thinks whatever she hears is probably not too bad. Her expression sobers, she looks down to her drawing and purses her mouth. "I like them better with color," she explains. She pauses again, her shoulders droop under her pale green nightshirt. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Will Pierce."

This time, the name is not venom. Will pulls the blanket a little further up so that is covers his mouth and nose. "It's okay, Dawn—" He stops, and he's conscious of his tone going up a few octaves in question.

"Pollard." Dawn supplies.

"Then, it's okay, Dawn Elise Pollard."

She finally closes her notebook and puts it away, pencil tucked into the pages as a bookmark. "Not fair," she says "I don't know _your_ middle name."

Will hesitates because, until now, no one but his mom had ever called him by that name. His breath hitches, and he can smell smoke and burnt skin. "Bennett."

"Will Bennett Pierce. Sorry I was a bitch earlier."

Will starts to shrug his shoulders, then he realizes the girl won't see if he does. The smell of smoke relents a little, but the image of his mom's hand is stamped on his brain. "Sorry I left without telling you." His eyes feel heavy with the need to sleep now. "Gotta find 'M'ry."

"Emery's that blond guy that they brought in with you, right?" Though her words are light, Dawn's voice is laced with jealousy. "I saw him, you know?"

Will's limbs feel electrified. He feels like Dawn will tell him that what she saw was Emery's body. Or maybe that she had to fight him for food. Anxiety claws at his chest and his heart feels heavy.

"W-where?" Will's voice is small even to his own ears. The voice of a child that, as far as any adult is concerned, cannot fight to keep others safe.

Dawn falls silent again, pulling her nightshirt so it covers her knees. Will waits. "You have to stay here for a bit if I tell, though."

Will bites his lip and tastes blood. He stops and licks the coopery taste away. "Okay."

Dawn looks torn between relief and disappointment. "He was headed to Floaroma Town. Or I think he was. He was walking that way." She points north for further clarification.

"How did you know it was him?"

Will knows his question is stupid. No one could confuse Emery with anyone else, loud and blond and grinning like an idiot as he always is. Orange and white stripes of his shirt would be like a beacon in a crowd. If he's still wearing that shirt, that is.

"I knew."

"But how?" Tomorrow, Will is going to blame this childish insistence on lack of sleep.

"You're scared of the Professor," Dawn says matter-of-factly, effectively changing the subject.

Will pulls the blanket completely over his head and rolls around so he has his back to her, catching Evangeline when she slides off his hip. He closes his eyes and tries to rid his mind of pokémon burning like pyres and men named Hunter lurking in the shadows.

{...}

White light floods the room, and the Team Galactic grunts stand stiffly side by side, their arms pressed to either side of them. Behind the table, Cyrus Reed frowns back at them. The artificial white light makes his already unnaturally pale skin look ethereal, his veins visible is blue-green pathways crisscrossing over muscle.

"And what, pray tell, were you thinking?"

Both grunts hate the way Cyrus speaks through his teeth.

"Sir—"

"Save it," Cyrus says harshly, perpetually intense eyes blazing. The male grunt tries to make himself smaller and the woman holds her tongue so she doesn't say Cyrus asked the question in the first place. "You're supposed to be acting like you're protecting the Sinnohans, terrorizing children is not protecting them."

The grunts remained quiet, eyes downcast, and finally Cyrus leaned over the desk, pals of his hands pressing against iron.

"Now go to where you're supposed to be. And make sure to listen to Commander Mars, as I am sure she would love to make you obey one way or the other."

{...}

"I'm sorry," Will says. He's been at Professor Rowan's apartment for the best of two weeks. His side only feels tender now, it no longer hurts nearly as bad as it did. He's glad the Professor doesn't own a mirror, because he can feel the two scars on his side under his fingers and doesn't think he'd like the look on them.

Adelaide is nibbling at Evangeline's head, and the shinx leans into it, stepping out of Zuzu's embrace to do it. Zuzu gives him a side glance, realizes Will isn't talking to neither him nor Ronan, and nudges Adelaide with a thick fist.

"He's talking to you," Zuzu says in a shouting whisper.

Adelaide huffs, but looks up at Will, looking oddly large for a starly. "What's up, kid?"

"I'm sorry," Will repeats, zipping up his bag and hugging it to his chest. "About… about the cave. For not listening to you."

It's early morning, and they are leaving. They are protected in this city, but Will needs to find Emery, and so they have to leave again. Tension coils uncomfortably in Will's stomach, but none of his pokémon have said anything, so Will figures this is okay.

Adelaide stares at Will, tiny body puffed up as she uses her feathers to make herself look bigger. She looks up at Will, the watery gray of his irises framed by the angry red that decorates the eyes of people who haven't slept in days, and sighs, entire body deflating.

"I know you are. It's fine," she reassures. She opens her wings to her sides "You just need to listen more often."

Will knows she's right, so he keeps his mouth pressed shut and nods his head.

The Professor and Dawn are waiting for him, for them, by the doorway of the apartment building. The Professor still stands tall, shoulders squared like he's not letting Will leave again, like that choice is not eating him up inside. Dawn pouts and crosses her arms over her chest and doesn't look up when Will tries to give her some sort of parting hug or smile or handshake.

Zuzu looks too comfortable in the Professor's arms, and Will wonders even further on what he's about to do. The empty feeling on his chest grows, but Will looks at Adelaide and Ronan playing with Evangeline and suddenly his bag feels heavier, weighed down by the pokéball that doesn't really belong to him. He does have to find Emery, but he also has to find a place where the geodude can stay.

"Will," The Professor calls just as Will reaches the last step of the porch. "Do try to put a roof over your head when you reach Floaroma, lad."

"I have to find Emery first!"

"You really do have a one-track mind, do you not?" The Professor says, and Will is not sure if that's good or bad, so he just shrugs and looks down at his sneakers.

He tries to say goodbye to Dawn again, but she still won't look at him, and then Evangeline has her fangs on his pant leg and she pulls with all her might, which is not much because she's tiny and maybe a month old, but it gets Will moving. He turns around to wave at the pair he's leaving behind until Adelaide huffs and pinches his hand.

"Eyes on the road, boy!"

Will massages his hand, but does as he's told, "This isn't a car," he mutters, though he doesn't know where the words came from.

The streets are crowded with new Team Galactic recruits and a stream of people keeping their head down as spokespeople call out to them to join their religion, which they say will save all who decide to join. Will pauses when he's in front of Arceus' church and his pokémon all halt and look back at him, waiting.

"What is it, kid?" Adelaide asks.

"Nothing," Will says, eyes glued to the once-fine stonework of the cathedral. "I was invited here, remember Zuzu?"

Zuzu looks vaguely uncomfortable, and he eyes the graffiti now marring the walls. Will doesn't know if Zuzu can read, though he can only assume he can't, but it's hard not to look at the red stains that cover the limestone.

"What's he talking about?" The voice is new, and Will whirls around to see that is was Ronan who spoke. Zuzu doesn't seem remotely surprised; the monferno spreads his arms so that Ronan has somewhere to land and the zubat does.

"A man tried to get Will to join a group the first time we got here. Right, Will?"

"Uh, yeah,"

"But he was being real mean, too, so I scared him and we ran." At this, Zuzu turns to Adelaide, who is trying to pull a piece of trash out of Evangeline's mouth. "You were really hurt, remember?"

"Can we quit it with the reminding of depressing crap?" Adelaide snaps. "Will, Evangeline won't let go of this thing!"

Will kneels next to the tiny shinx, grabbing her by the middle and using the thumb and index finger of his other hand to pull the thing she has between her teeth.

"C'mon, that's bad for you, Evangeline." Will tries to pull again, his index finger curled around the object, but Evangeline fights to keep her jaw clenched shut, and Will finally gives up. Just as he does, Evangeline spits out a piece of garbage, and Adelaide gags.

"Can we just get out of here? This city smells like someone took shit on it." Adelaide says. She doesn't wait for any of them, just takes flight like her wings could get rid of the smell that permeated the air.

Will ignores the shadows around him. He's not sure if they are really there, but since he's not sure, he keeps his head down, face burrowed on the neckline of his jacket. He can feel the stares, though he rationally knows no one is sparing him a glance.

"Young lad," Will nearly jumps out of his skin when a hand lands on his shoulder, and he whirls around to find an aging man he instantly recognizes. The cheap brown suit is gone, replaced by dirty yellow and orange of a clown's suit. The wrinkles Will remembers are likewise covered in bright white paint, and graying hair under a hat. "It is I, Looker, from the International Police."

Will remembers very well, and knows this man left the city even before he did. "I could tell."

Looker is taken aback. His face serious under the clown make up. "You could, could you not? I must assume you did decide to stay, as you are still here."

Will grits his teeth together. "I left!" He yells, "And I'm back, and you're back, too! Did you think better about the Galactic Forces?!"

Looker crosses his arms over his chest and he doesn't look anything like a clown anymore. Will takes a step back at the same time all his pokémon give a step forward, standing between trainer and threat.

"You must be confused, as before. Stay away from Team Galactic, for it is not safe." Looker says.

"Mr. Cyrus saved me and my friend!" It's the same argument as before, and Will will defend that to his dying breath. "You're lying!"

"Did they not ask you to give them your pokémon to heal?" Looker says, "When you first came to the city?"

"Yeah, so?" Adelaide and Zuzu are already poised to attack. Ronan and Evangeline don't look convinced, but stand their ground. From behind them, Will tries to stand a little taller, though his knees are shaking and his eyes sting.

Looker is not impressed. He digs into a pocket of the clown suit, and Will flinches, losing his nerve and scooting away. "Here," Looker says as he holds something blue and black in Will's direction.

Will opens his eyes, shoulders still drawn in fear, "W-what?"

"You are leaving, as you should. You have a bag." Looker doesn't reach beyond Will's pokémon, just holds out his hand. Hesitantly, Will reaches for it.

It's a pokétch, and Will can't believe he's actually holding one. The hype they gave it in the commercials made it obvious it was expensive, even if Will always closed his eyes and put his fingers in his ears when he knew they were about to announce the price. His mother had promised him that, when he became a trainer, she would try to find a way to pay for one.

And here it is, sturdy blue plastic with a blue metal lining to protect the screen and body from damage, a comfortable wristband stripped in black and blue. Will lifts his eyes to try and understand.

"The watch, it could be a good tool for trainers, I was told. I need it not." Looker talks weird, but he's giving him a gift, an expensive gift that looks shiny and new.

"T-thanks." Will says. Looker merely nods and starts to back away, stopping only for a second.

"My friend," He says. Will wonders just when they became friends. "I suggest you remain vigilant for shady grown-ups!"

 **{…}**

Route 204 is the cleanest route they have seen so far. There is no debris and clearly all the sane trainers have abandoned it in favor of Jubilife. Will squeezes Evangeline before he lets her jump down from his arms. The shinx is delighted; she runs around the trail and cries out in delight even though the snow must be gnawing at her paws.

Will can only smile.

The first pokémon they come across is a budew, and Will is throwing a pokéball before he can think about it. It shakes a couple of times, and when it stops, Will lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Everyone but Evangeline is looking at his like he grew a second head.

"You realize that's another mouth we have to stuff with food right?" Adelaide says, words harsh and unfaltering even though her trainer is breathing hard, sharp intakes of air.

"I-I…" Will falters, and Zuzu's suddenly there, one strong arm around his knee.

"It's one more friend, Adelaide!" The monferno says, frown in his voice. When he looks up at Will, Zuzu is all soft words and gentle reassurance. "Can we see?"

Budew presents himself as Ezra The Magnificent and haughtily refuses to be called anything else. He looks at the rest of the group up and down, and is most definitely displeased with what he sees.

"Can you not smell the dirt on you? Uhg!"

Adelaide looks at the budew in disapproval and moves closer so she can peck him with her beak. "Shut up," She says. "We'll just call you Ezra, if that."

Ezra clearly doesn't like it, but he focuses his attention on Will, who still looks like he's not quite sure of what he's doing or why he's doing it. Will stares back at Ezra, and the pokémon seems outright pleased with this.

"Are you lost, honey?" Ezra asks, all charming smiles that would look cute on a child but look plain scary on a budew.

"I, ah, no?"

"Um, Will? Can we go inside the cave before it gets darker?" Zuzu pulls at Will's leg, but he's already holding Evangeline on one arm and rearing to go. Will looks nervously at Ezra, but follows Zuzu without a word and hoping the rest would follow.

The pokétch has a map application, though Will is unsure if the app is preloaded or if Looker or someone else added a card to it as a gift. Still, the name of the cave has him shivering; the Ravaged Path is not a place where Will wants to spend the night, but it's warmer inside, and his pokémon all seem ready to settle down.

"Wait," he says, lips pursed "Let's keep walking. We… we can sleep inside, but I think…The exit…"

Ezra is all smooth lines and looks for something so round and small, but Will has to give him credit: he didn't look remotely put out when he noticed Will could understand him, and now he's the first to move, strutting down the cave like he knows no fear.

"I hate him already," Adelaide mutters. It echoes on the walls, though, and soon Ezra's voice bounces back:

"That's too bad, darling! The little one captured me fair and square!"

It only works to piss her more, and Zuzu holds her back when she looks like she's about to go on a warpath. Ronan lands on Will's shoulder, and Will strokes the back of his neck. Evangeline is oblivious to anything that isn't right in front of her, and so she bounds away to follow Ezra.

Will hesitates, but Zuzu reassures him that it's okay, and the three of them start walking, Ronan still perched on Will's shoulder. It's almost half an hour later that they see Ezra and Evangeline again, both sitting in front of a couple of rocks that block their path.

Evangeline looks up and runs toward them, practically bouncing as she nudges Adelaide with her nose.

"Stop disappearing, brat." Adelaide says, though she puts a wing over her. Evangeline purrs.

Will looks around at the rocks, tries to push one, and winces. With a hand on his tender side, he gives a step back, trying to see what else he can do. It doesn't look very solid, but when Zuzu tries to punch it, only a few pieces crumble under his fist.

"You're not that strong, are you, sweetie?" Ezra asks Zuzu.

Zuzu shrugs. "I guess not for this."

"Maybe John can help." Will says, more to himself than the others.

"That's a stupid idea," Adelaide says.

Ezra squints up at Will, "Who's _John_?" He drags out the name like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and Will tries to make himself smaller.

"It's a geodude that shouldn't be here." Adelaide replies.

"But Will is right, maybe John can help!" Zuzu turns to look at Will, eyes big and innocent. "Ask him!"

Will takes the backpack off his back and kneels down so he can reach better into the pocket he has stashed John's pokéball. He holds the white-and-red sphere in his hand, and Adelaide drags Evangeline and Ronan away from them, near a corner where she can watch and not be in Will's direct line of sight.

When John is released from his pokéball, he only has to look around for a second before he notices the rocks.

"J-John," Will starts, hands nervously clutching at his bag. "Can you help us?"

"How long until we get somewhere safe?" John retaliates, eyes on the rocks.

"I… I can't say for sure," Will confesses. Next to him, Zuzu leans to his uninjured side, and Ezra stands boldly right where he is despite everyone's hesitation. "Jubilife isn't. We're going to Floaroma, but I don't know…"

John sighs and doesn't even try looking for the rest of the group. It's clear he prefers not to have a crowd around him. Will can relate. "Fine. But don't forget our agreement."

"Of course not!"

John tells Will to back away, and Zuzu and Ezra obey, too, hovering next to Adelaide, Ronan and Evangeline. Then John lifts a heavy fist and closes his eyes.

For the next twenty seconds, absolutely nothing happens.

Ezra is not impressed. "Cute plan," he says. "But perha—"

John growls and finally lets his fist fly, connecting to the rock in the center. The rock explodes and Will falls on his butt and covers his head from the debris. When Will looks up, John is approaching. Ezra is outright staring as John takes his own pokéball from Will's hand and starts to press the button.

"Ah, thanks, John."

And then John is gone in a beam of red light.

"Let's just _go_ already!"

Will reacts at Adelaide's impatient words, putting John's pokéball back in his bag and zipping it up. He straps it back on his back, and looks around for anything he might be forgetting. Ezra is still staring at the place John had just been standing at.

"Ezra?" Zuzu tries. Ezra only blinks. Will picks him up instead of trying again, and they all set off to chase after Adelaide.

When Will gets to the other side of the cave and looks out the opening, he realizes he can't see the stars. Everything is covered with a sheen of either smoke or clouds, Will can't tell. Whatever the case is, the night is very obviously set; his pokétch reads 22:20 when he figures out he can tap the touchscreen to activate the backlight.

"We can rest here, Will." Zuzu assures him.

"Ah, yeah, right." Will responds.

Will kneels in front of his backpack and pulls out the blanket. There are more of them now, but even though Zuzu evolved, the others are still small enough that they can all fit under the blanket if they press close together. Next to him, Zuzu reaches into the bag to pull several cans of food and sets them in front of Will so he can count them.

"Evangeline is asleep but I'm not very hungry, so I'll share with her." Adelaide clarifies. Will nods, and looks over at Ezra who is still looking out of it.

"Ezra?" He calls.

The budew plops down on the rock beneath him. "He's so _strong_." Ezra's voice is distracted, almost like his words were meant for thoughts and not spoken.

Adelaide rolls her eyes. "Oh, this is great. Good job, kid."

"I-I didn't do that."

"Just give me food already."

Will does. He opens the cans carefully and asks Zuzu to heat them; it's cold outside, and Will is scared to light a campfire inside the cave, no matter how close they are to the opening. Staying outside for a few hours could be safe, but not with a beacon screaming their location with light and smoke.

Ezra and Zuzu eat normally, but Ronan refuses to eat facing everyone, and instead drags his can of food to a darker place and returns only when he's finished. As promised, Adelaide leaves more than half of her can unfinished and places it next to Evangeline, who is still very much asleep.

One by one, they all cuddle close to each other and sleep under the blanket, kept warmth by Zuzu's high body temperature. Will remains awake, and he releases John again when he's sure the others won't hear them.

"You should sleep more, kid." John says.

"Yeah. But you need to eat." He offers a can to the geodude. It's cold because Will still doesn't know how to ask Zuzu to warm an extra can without tipping off Adelaide. He never thought he would have to feed someone in the middle of the night, at least not in secret.

But for once, John looks grateful, even though the feeling of cold food must be uncomfortable.

"Uh, Ezra seems to like you." Will pipes up suddenly. He's aware of the uncertainty in his voice, and John refuses to look up from his food. "So, uh, you know. When… when we get to a safe place… maybe you can, like, say good bye to him?"

John does not acknowledge him, and though Will tries a couple more times, he ends up asleep against the wall before John finishes his dinner, lulled by the warmth wrapped around his legs.

He's roused from his sleep when Adelaide slaps him with her wing, and he looks at her as she moves all around them, lifting the blanket to look under it and looking nervously toward the end of the cave. John is nowhere to be found, but the others are jittery, looking all around as Zuzu approaches from the way they arrived.

"What—?" His head feels heavy and his eyes puffy.

"Evangeline is gone!" Adelaide cries. She's fluttering near the entrance, looking torn between staying with them and going on a search outside by herself. "I'm—I'm going!"

"Wait for me!" Zuzu calls after her. He tells Will to hurry and then he's running after the starly. Will picks up his bag and throws it over his shoulders. Heart thundering in his chest, his feet tangle with the blanket and he struggles to get free before he can fall on his face. Ronan is crying out with anxiety, hovering right under the threshold.

"Ah, ah! I can't run that fast!" Ezra shouts, all previous act of elegance gone as he struggles to keep up. Will turns back, grabs him against his chest, and runs, leaving the blanket behind. Ronan is close, using Will's head to propel himself forward when the speed is too much for him to keep up with.

There's a body on the ground. A boy, maybe younger than Will. Will closes his eyes and keeps running, but he can feel the way Ezra stops moving in his arms, the way he turns slightly to keep watching as they move.

"Don't look at it." Will whispers. It's a warning to himself, but it also works for Ezra, who uses the vines at the top of his head to cover his eyes.

To follow the path is easy; this is a trainer route, especially designed for relatively easy travel for the children and adults on a pokémon journey. Despite the destruction, the path is mostly clear, and flights of carefully designed stairs ease their climbing up the mountain. He can see Zuzu and Adelaide now, not much ahead of them, and Will struggles to run faster, fights against the dull ache on his muscles and the difficulty he has breathing.

He catches up, "Can you see her?!"

He sounds desperate to his own ears.

"Just!" Adelaide replies from her high vantage point "There's a guy—!" Then she lets out a shrill cry and accelerates even more.

Limbs pumped with adrenaline, Will does the same.

There's a boy, older than Will, maybe older even than Emery, and he's laughing. The sound sends a shiver up Will's spine; it's a cold, manic sort of laughter, empty on any emotion except maybe despair. He remembers it from Twinleaf, he remembers it from Sandgem; when the news reports announced new bombings even far off in Snowpoint and the frightened anchors recommended nobody leave their homes. When footage of red-clad soldiers made it to the giant screen in Jubilife.

All the sane trainers have abandoned the route. This isn't a sane trainer.

The red of the Kanto Forces uniform is reflected on the metallic exoskeleton of the Scizor standing over Evangeline. Evangeline, for all her ignorance, stands in front of the giant pokémon confidently. Will is too far away to know if she's trying to say anything, but it hardly matters. The Scizor raises a pincer, and it strikes.

Red sullies the snow and grass around them, and Will can't breathe.

With a war cry, Adelaide glows pure white, and when she strikes, her wings are strong and her feet have claws.

Will runs faster than he's ever run. He lets go of Ezra when Evangeline is close, and the other pokémon stop with him while Will howls. From the corner of his eye, he sees the Scizor turn to intercept him, and a second later, Adelaide is on top of it, striking with powerful attacks fueled by anger. Will throws his shoulder against the guy.

His hair is brown, but he's pale, though Will cannot know if it's because of the weather or if that's how he naturally looks. Whichever the case, the boy is bigger than Will, and when Will punches, the older boy retaliates. Will can't feel the bloody lip nor the swelling on his cheekbone, just rage and fear.

"She was alone!" He cries. He puts his hand over the other's nose and mouth, and uses his entire weight to keep him still. The other boy punches as best as he can, but soon Adelaide is there, breathing hard and still furious. "She was just a baby, you stupid—!"

Strong arms grab him by the chest and drag him off the boy. Will doesn't look away when Adelaide raises her wing and forcibly lowers it over the boy's head; doesn't look away as the shiny red of the boy's blood pools under him.

"Will?" Zuzu coaxes him, gentle hands touching his face. Will winces when Zuzu gingerly pats his bleeding lip. He can feel it now, his mouth numb.

Zuzu looks haunted. When Will looks, Ezra and Ronan are deflated next to Evangeline. Will struggles to his feet, but the surge of strength has left him, and the best he can do is crawl over to the tiny body of Evangeline and kneel next to her.

"Eva?" Will asks. He knows she won't respond. Her head looks wrong, _caved_ from the blow. He reaches to touch her, and the tears finally fall, again. "I'm so sorry," he says. And he repeats it over and over until the words don't make sense anymore, until they're just a string of letters that don't feel like they should be together.

When John is brought out by Zuzu, he takes a look at Will's face; the blood and tears and the green that is starting to color his cheekbone, then he looks at the patch of blue fur he can barely see from between Will's arms, and no one says anything: he just starts digging.

 **{E N D - 0 0 5}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 5; Deaths| 1**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Monferno  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 17

 **Name|** Adelaide  
 **Species|** Starly  
 **Nature|** Timid  
 **Characteristic|** Proud of her power  
 **Ability|** Keen Eye  
 **Level|** 13 {She technically evolved while grinding in what counts as the next chapter}

 **Name|** Ronan  
 **Species|** Zubat  
 **Nature|** Bashful  
 **Characteristic|** Happily eats anything  
 **Ability|** Inner Focus  
 **Level|** 9

 **Name|** John  
 **Species|** Geodude  
 **Nature|** Lonely  
 **Characteristic|** Scatters things often  
 **Ability|** Rock head  
 **Level|** 6

 **Name|** Ezra {The Magnificent}  
 **Species|** Budew  
 **Nature|** Brave  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Natural Cure  
 **Level|** 9


	6. She's Gone (she left before you woke)

**Warning: Violence**

Title: "In Our Bedroom After the War", by Stars

* * *

 **006.** **She's Gone (she left before you woke)**

The flowers of Floaroma Town are not meant to be funeral decorations. But that is what Will uses them for. They are mostly wilted, and though he can't see that far beyond the wooden arches that try and fail to welcome them, dulled blues and purples are the only thing Will can see.

Before everything, Will never left Twinleaf except for the monthly visits to Lake Verity, but he remembers his mom promising to bring him here, to admire the bursts of vivid color sprouting from the ground no matter how cold the weather grew. Will squints down at the flowers over Evangeline's grave and wonders if they really are as dull as he thinks they are, of if his eyes are just filtered with gray tints now. If they are forever embedded with dirt and smoke.

They can't be, he decides. Nearby, the carcass of the scizor and blood of its trainer glisten harshly against the green-brown of the grass.

{ _RED_ } Will's mind screams, and he recoils involuntarily.

When he looks up and sees Adelaide, he has to take a deep breath. Will doesn't think he likes it; evolution forced out of his pokémon so they can try to protect each other.

Ezra squirming uncomfortably catches Will's attention, and when he looks the budew looks apologetic for an instant before he shifts, looking uncomfortable as he stares at the ground instead of his trainer's eyes.

"I'm hungry." He says quietly.

And he has reason to be. Will's stomach has been rumbling for a while now, too, though he ignored it in favor of staying with Evangeline for as long as he could. The rest of his pokémon shift around, too. All except for Zuzu, who instead tries to encourage everyone to stay a little longer.

"No," Will says, quietly. He rubs his hands together and blows on them to warm them. "We've been here almost the entire day." He rubs his hands again, this time uncomfortable, confused. "We should go, right?"

He turns to Adelaide for confirmation. The staravia nods, though she doesn't quite look away from Evangeline's grave. Then her feathers ruffle and she puffs herself up.

"Yes." Adelaide says firmly, "Let's get going, now. We'll freeze out here at this rate."

"But… I could make a fire, you know." Zuzu insists. Will hates the way he says it, the way he looks; all sagging shoulders and crestfallen expression. "We could—"

"I thought we were looking for Will's friend?" As soon as he says it, Ronan flinches and goes to hide behind Will, covering his face with one of his wings.

"Oh," Zuzu says "Right."

Slowly, they get up. They're close to the town now, painfully so. It's hard to think that Evangeline will never see this place. They were so _close_.

 _You should have kept an eye out for her_. Will stomps on that thought as soon as it comes, unbidden, into his brain. Still, something feels empty, hollow, in his chest.

Ezra is the first to stop in his tracks as they go into town. Next is Zuzu, who holds back Adelaide and Will. Will looks up from the grass he was staring at, and promptly sighs but looks carefully around.

Most of the town, it seems, is covered in rows upon rows of rough tents. The empty lots are equipped with deep pots on top of makeshift campfires that people in white uniforms are only just starting to light up. There are, at the doors of buildings, tables meant for registration to the Galactic Forces.

Though Will feels like his eyelids are bruising, he turns to his pokémon and smiles.

"Come on! Maybe they'll accept us in this camp!" He says. None of his pokémon look convinced, but it's Ezra that frowns, mouth curving down.

"Join them?" He asks, "They're killing everything! I was here before they got here, I promise!"

Will bounces on the balls of his feet, lips between his teeth. "It's only some flowers. They're, they're heroes. They're chasing the Kanto forces away!"

"Only some flowers!" Ezra cries, he shakes the vines atop his head "These are flowers! Flowers are beautiful, they're meant to live!"

"We're meant to live!" Will snaps, "My mom was meant to live! Mr. Royce, too! But Kanto—" He shuts his mouth with a click of his teeth, runs his hands over the front of his jacket. When he continues, his voice is much more quiet. "Look, just. I'm sorry. We can plant more flowers. I promise, okay?"

Ezra looks dubious, still. But he keeps walking, and everyone follows. Will is nervous by the time he gets to the registration table, and when the man in white looks up from the papers in front of him, Will has to gulp to remain still.

"What?" The man says, and Will recoils, taking a step back and gripping the straps of his backpack until his knuckles turn white.

"I just—"

"The energy at the center won't be coming back for a few more days," The man continues, "Now scram, kid."

"No, I… I want to register. For… for Team Galactic." Will tries to hide his face in the collar of his jacket when the man's stare becomes unpleasant.

"Are you shitting me, boy?" The man sneers, but when he goes to get up, Will whimpers, closing his eyes and putting closed fists in front of his chest. The man plops back into his chair, growl straining to escape his throat. "We don't need little children running around. Not with that attitude, particularly."

Protests itch in Will's throat. Tears sting his eyes. Zuzu nudges him, and when Will looks down, he doesn't know what to feel anymore.

"Ask him where we can stay," Zuzu suggests.

Will blinks, sniffles, and nods. He turns to the man again, "Um, excuse me, but, is there someplace I can stay?"

The man groans and rolls his eyes. "You can't be for real. I don't know! Try the center, but I can't promise it won't be full as fuck." The man smacks his hands on the table, gets up again, Will gives another step back. "If you're done wasting my time," The man says before he starts walking away.

He doesn't move his things, so the table is still stock full of papers when he does. Will steps closer to it, cautious, and yells for the man to come back, he forgot his stuff. But the man doesn't even turn around and Will is left with a tableful of papers and random items that he's not sure what to do with.

Zuzu promptly climbs the table, looking over the papers.

"Will, look!" In Zuzu's hand there's a silver key with a round yellow embellishment on one end. And oh. No. Will's eyes can still see bright colors.

"What is it?" Ezra asks from beside Will's feet. "I can't see!" Will takes it upon himself to pick up the budew so he can see what's happening, but otherwise doesn't try to do anything else.

Adelaide flies over so she can stand next to Zuzu and quickly snatches the key out of his hand. "Let me see!" She orders. Zuzu doesn't try to fight her.

"It looks important," Ezra adds, now that he's on the vantage point of Will's arms.

Will can feel Ronan nodding into his neck. This is just too much. He breathes in, then out, and suddenly he doesn't feel with the energy to do anything. The flowers are still dull and dead under his sneakers, and he feels like he wants to throw up at the thought.

Without saying anything, Will steps away from the table and starts walking away.

"Hey, wait up!" He hears Zuzu yell, and then the sound of wings as Adelaide flies over to them. Zuzu reaches them, too, and holds on to Will's pants, as if he was a frightened child at a supermarket and not a pokémon meant to protect his trainer. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to make you feel better."

Will still doesn't say anything. They look around, and every time they get too close to a man, Will shrinks away and goes the other way, shoulders tense and breathing heavy. Zuzu looks worse for the wear every time it happens, and he presses close to Will's leg at the same time Adelaide perches on his shoulder, shielding a side of his face.

"Oh, young man?" It's a girl, a teenager, but dressed in the black sport slacks and white shirts the Galactic Forces use when they're meant to be resting. She's standing next to one of those metal pots and her brow is shiny with sweat from being so close to the fire. "Did you already get dinner?"

Mutely, Will shakes his head, approaching only when the girl motions him over. He stares at his shoes, but he can hear her making a headcount before she hands a bowl of thick broth to all of them, though after a thought she gives three of them to Will, and points them toward a group of log benches.

"Thanks," Will says.

"No problem. I'm sorry we don't have spoons." When Will shrugs, the girl finally lets them go.

They sit, though John, quiet until now, makes it a point to steer clear from them. Will places Ronan and Ezra's bowls on the floor, where they can eat without problem. Huddled between his pokémon, Will can bring himself to relax a little, but his eyes still dart one way and the other between spoonfuls of broth, which tastes like cardboard and makes his throat dry. He has to pause constantly, hissing when the broth comes in contact with his busted lip.

Zuzu leans into Will's side, and Will feels a little better. He finishes his food, and says nothing even though he really needs to find water. He can barely see out of his left eye at this point, swollen as it is, so he doesn't know if moving around to find it would be smart.

"Are we really going to the pokémon center?" Zuzu mutters into Will's arm.

"What?" Ezra asks from Will's other side.

Zuzu pulls away from him, sitting up straight so that his voice isn't muffled, and repeats, "Are we really going to the pokémon center?"

"Well, of course we are, darling," Ezra says, as though he has any say on the matter.

Will shrugs, he looks at Adelaide and Ronan and John, expecting at least one of them to voice their opinion, too. But John has his back to them, and Ronan has taken to poke his bowl with his wing, clicking sounds coming from his mouth. Adelaide just sits there, food untouched and staring off into space.

Will wants to reach out to her and pet her feathers, but he's afraid the aggression from earlier will return if he does.

"I think we should," Zuzu suggests quietly. He looks at Adelaide and seems to shrink into himself. "I mean, Adelaide was right. I could light a fire, but I'm tired. We should go to the center. Right, Will?"

And because Will can't think, he just shrugs and that's that. They encourage Adelaide to eat, but she insists she's done after only one bite, and they return their bowl to the girl who served them.

"Thank you," Will whispers.

"No problem! If you want some tomorrow morning just give me a shout! I'm Ella."

Will nods. The fame fits her. She looks like a stereotypical Sinnohan, all blonde hair and big eyes that Will can't distinguish the color of-green or blue-with ony the light of the fire.

"Will Pierce," Will says in turn.

She smiles, "That's an awesome name! I wish I could sound menacing with _my_ name."

Will isn't sure what she sees in his name. He looks at Adelaide, still crestfallen, and doesn't try to continue the conversation. He waves goodbye to Ella and squints at the signs that keep giving him odd directions to get to the center.

 **{…}**

"Will? Are you awake?"

It's Zuzu, so Will hums in reply.

It's the dead of night, and they haven't stepped out of the center in two days. He's eaten only what Ella insists on bringing him, saying that a child shouldn't have to be alone and fend for himself.

There's no television in this center, and the streetlights have been out at least as long as the center's power has been gone, so Will can't see two centimeters in front of his face. The familiar buzzing of the machines upstairs is absent, and Will is restless. It had become a constant, in all the centers, to hear them when he couldn't sleep and the last of the adults had finally turned off the TV.

"I just," Zuzu continues. Will doesn't try to look at him; he knows he won't be able to. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

"Hm?"

A sob. "Eva!" Though it's still a whisper, there's harshness behind the word, and Will forces himself not to flinch. "I promised the Professor I'd protect you, but Eva's dead and Adelaide won't eat, and you never can sleep!"

Zuzu presses his head against Will's injured side, but Will is feeling a little numb, he can hardly tell if it really hurts or if it's just muscle memory reacting to the touch.

"I couldn't sleep since before," He reassures Zuzu, but when the words leave his mouth, the boy realizes they're not much is a reassurance.

"Can I sleep on your chest?" Zuzu sounds so sad that Will couldn't bring himself to say no even if he didn't like the idea. He agrees, and Zuzu carefully settles on Will's torso, letting Will wrap his arms around him and breathing deep to try and warm Will with his body heat.

It's a little easier after that. With Zuzu where he is and John inside his pokéball, the rest of his pokémon scoot closer, and Will can feel all of them, reassuring him of their presence.

Will closes his eyes, and breathes in. By the time he breathes out, he's out like a light.

 **{…}**

For the second time in his life, Will wakes up to explosions.

His eyes snap open, already out of breath, and he only barely manages to sit up before a man grabs him, yelling, and Will screams. Zuzu growls, and goes to scratch the man's chest before anyone else can react.

The man grunts, hands flying to his chest, but all Will can do is stare. He can feel terror rising on his chest, gripping his lungs until he can't breathe. He grits his teeth and whimpers, his hands are shivering, but the man in the red uniform snarls.

"Fucking little shit," The man growls. Will can't move, bile races up his throat like venom. "I remember you, boy, you fucking got away from me." Behind him, a scyther glowers at Zuzu. Will's mind short-circuits, and all he can think about is Mr. Royce's head being blown to bits and staining the grass under him. The cry of one of his kid neighbors as a scyther silenced her. This scyther.

Will screams.

Suddenly Adelaide is pulling on his collar, and Ronan is screeching and Will doesn't know anything except there's red in front of him and he can't take deep breaths. Zuzu gets between him and the soldier in red just as the man's snarl becomes a wicked smile.

"X-scissor!"

The scyther jumps and Zuzu's face twists into a vicious knot and when he roars a monstrous fire erupts from his mouth. Terror shines in the soldier's face, and Will can't move.

It's like the scyther disappears. For a second, it's there, and the next, fire has engulfed it and Will can't breathe and neither can the scyther. And the fire keeps expanding; it's breathing and taking Will's air from his lungs. The smoke prickles his eyes, his skin burns.

Except it's not his skin. The Kanto soldier screams, a tormented wail of agony.

Will's heard burning flesh is the worst thing anyone can smell. He knows, here in close-quarters, that that's absolutely right.

Zuzu staggers, braces himself against the floor, and turns around to look at them. Will can't move, but he knows Zuzu sees fear on his face, because he deflates, chest heaving, until Adelaide snaps her wings in the air and tells them to move it.

There's fire around him, again, and this time Emery isn't here to pull him away. When Adelaide tugs at his arm with enough force to move him, Will barely manages to pick up his bag before she's hauling him upstairs. Zuzu grabs Ezra, and Ronan is somewhere around him, Will can tell, but his eyes are stuck to the charred corpse of the man that killed his neighbors.

"Come on, kid!" Adelaide bites out, her claws still grip the sleeve of his jacket, and Will finally tears his eyes away.

Floaroma is pandemonium. The tents all look ransacked, the pots of broth fallen on their sides, accompanying bodies of white and red alike. People run, and they scream, and their pokémon attack other pokémon and people and Will wouldn't know where to go if Adelaide wasn't pulling her.

The only thought his mind provides is, ' _come on, come on, come on_ ', a chant made for running mindlessly, apparently, because he knows he has heard that before and then it's like Will's back in Twinleaf and the pull on his arm is Emery's hand trying to get them away from the town.

His foot catches on something, and he comes tumbling down on hands and knees. He turns, bites a sob, and closes his eyes.

 _EllaEllaEllaEllaElla_.

Will throws up thick broth that burns his throat. He doesn't want to open his eyes. They'll stare right into Ella's.

"Will!" Adelaide calls, followed by a screech. Will's eyes snap open, and though they find Ella's eyes, they don't find her body. Will can't process it, not until Zuzu shoves Ezra into his arms and swings a fist into a glameow and Adelaide yells his name again.

Ronan's down. Ella is just a head and Ronan's down and Will grabs Ronan and screams at Zuzu to follow. They run. Adelaide flies higher than normal and yells at them so they know where to go. This time, it's Will that has to do the pulling. His pokémon just lost their friend, they are small and unevolved and scared, so Will has to do something.

Adelaide leads them to a building surrounded by wind turbines and a high concrete wall. There's no one else around save a few, frightened civilians that don't even look at Will and his team when they run past them. They're all staring out over the archways to the town, watching their home go up in flames and blood.

Ezra is shivering against Will's chest, but Ronan remains still on his arm.

Will rushes through the gate, getting and starts to yell, "Help!"

Next to him, Zuzu does the same, and Will hopes that even if they don't understand him, someone will come if a pokémon is crying out. Over them, Adelaide informs them that there are some lights on up in the building, and Will starts because he hadn't considered the possibility of there being nobody there.

"Help!" Will cries. His legs are numb, doesn't know how much he ran, and frankly doesn't care. When he gets to the main entrance, Will drapes Ezra up higher so he's resting on his shoulder, and uses his now-free fist to hammer on the door. "Please! Help! Help me!"

The door slides open, and a woman steps out, frown on her face, lips turned down. Red hair frames her face, and there's something wrong with that but Will still can't feel Ronan moving so he just steps forward. The woman is wearing a Team Galactic uniform, and Will's chest feels a little uncoiled at that.

"Please," Will says. He's whispering, and when he blinks, there's a man next to the woman and Will steps back at the same time the man surges forward.

The woman grabs the man by the collar of his uniform and pulls him back. She looks at Will sternly, and Will can't hold her gaze, so he drops it to her shoulder. There are stars there, golden and shiny. She must hold some kind of special rank.

"Take the kid," She orders. "Have Mason look at him and his pokémon. I'll take a look around town."

"No!" Will cries. "Don't go, it's dangerous, it's—"

The woman stops, looks at Will with calculating, unreadable eyes. "Like I said," She says, though she's still looking at Will, "Take the kid and see to his team."

She steps around Will and his pokémon. Her back is straight, her head held high, the picture of power even though Will can barely keep his knees from shaking.

"Come on, short stuff," The man says. "You heard Mars."

 _Mars_.

Will stays two steps behind the Team Galactic grunt when he leads him upstairs. He's still shivering like a leaf when the man knocks on a door and a woman wearing a lab coat comes out.

"The Commander wants you to check on these ones." The man points.

The woman (doctor?) looks at them, her eyes flicker with recognition, then they land on Ronan.

"Thank you, Jonah," She says. "You can go now."

Jonah turns right around and leaves, and the doctor opens her door wider to let the others in. Zuzu goes in first, frantic, and Will follows. He doesn't sit, and the doctor doesn't close the door. She goes to take Ronan out of Will's arms, and Will bites back a whimper and hugs Ronan tighter to his chest.

"It's okay," the doctor assures, "I need to look at him to see what's wrong."

Zuzu pulls at Will's pants and Adelaide nips at his ear and Will loosens his grip, letting the doctor take Ronan away. She goes over to a table and busies herself, her back facing Will, and Will grabs Ezra from his shoulder and hugs him to his chest so that his hands have something to do other than shake.

Will can still smell burning flesh, and the Kanto Forces soldier smoking corpse flashes in his mind over and over and over again. He doesn't sit because he can't. He's a bundle of nerves and his knees feel weak and rigid at the same time.

Zuzu tries to nudge him, and Will stumbles back. Zuzu is orange and red and fire, and sweat condenses in Will's brow and he smells smoke and death and charcoal. Adelaide nips at his ear, but Will's breaths are already ragged. He is back in Twinleaf, but he isn't, he is in Floaroma, or close to it, anyway, far away from Twinleaf.

"Will?" Zuzu ventures. There's pain in his voice, but Will doesn't remember him getting hurt. Will closes his eyes. It hurts, his cheekbone is still purple from his fight with the scizor's trainer.

"It's okay, Will." Adelaide adds.

"I'm sorry," Says Zuzu, though he doesn't try to get any closer. The guilt Will heard the night before is back. "I didn't mean… well, I don't know what I did," he admits, "But I'm still sorry! Tell me what I did and. And I won't do it again, I promise!"

Will wonders if Zuzu realizes just how often he has promised things he can't follow through. But his shoulders are hunched, large paws holding to each other as if he's trying to restrain himself from attacking. Will feels cold and scared and Zuzu has been with him the longest.

He takes in a shuddering breath. "I'm fine," he tells Zuzu, "I just… don't like fire."

Zuzu takes a moment and then he seems to remember the way he burned a man and a pokémon to death. Will can see how the realization grows until Zuzu doesn't have the strength to stand anymore, and he collapses on his knees. Will hugs his jacket closer to himself, and Ezra buries his entire body on Will's chest.

"I… I _can_ not use fire!"

Will shakes his head. "You're a fire pokémon. That'd be super unfair."

The doctor looks around briefly to look at him, and Will doesn't meet her eyes. She goes right back to tending Ronan.

"It didn't bother you before," Adelaide brings up, once the doctor is focused on her teammate.

"It was different this time," Will says, lowering his voice down to a whisper.

And it was. Zuzu had never used fire to burn people—or anyone—to death before.

"But Will—!"

"It's fine, Zuzu." Insists Will.

The group falls into silence then. Will is high-strung, and quivers when anyone so much as breathes too loudly, but at least Ezra has stopped shivering. When Will looks, he sees Ezra has fallen asleep, so Will allows himself to use the hood of his jacket as a makeshift carrier. Zuzu has taken it upon himself to stay as far from Will as he can while still being in the same room, and Adelaide sits right in the middle, muttering under her breath so Will can't hear what's she's saying.

After what feels like hours, the doctor finally turns around with Ronan in her arms. She seems surprised to see Will still standing, but she approaches anyway, passing the zubat over gently.

"He'll be fine, he just needs some rest now." She says.

Will buries his face on Ronan's stomach, "Thanks,"

"Let's give you a check-up now, all right?" the doctor continues. She doesn't wait for Will to agree, just places her hand on his shoulder and sits him down on an uncomfortable chair. In the blink of an eye, Zuzu and Adelaide are there, each on either side of his chair, and Adelaide has picked Ezra up from Will's hood and put him in Zuzu's arms.

The doctor looks concerned when she lightly taps Will's face and the boy flinches. She lowers her arms, reaches past Will to grab a box of wipes that she puts on the floor next to her. "What's your name?" She asks.

"Will Pierce."

"Nice to meet you, Will. My name is Jillian," She takes a few wipes from the box and looks back at Will, "I'm going to clean your face a little, all right?"

It's not so much a question as it is a warning, because Will can't even nod before she's rubbing his face. Will hisses, and she winces when she sees the damage to his lip. Will is not sure if doctors are supposed to do that, and wonders if she used to be a doctor before she was recruited. She finishes cleaning his face, then uses her thumbs to inspect the wound on his lip. She pulls a little, and when Will cringes, she hums,

"You don't need stitches, but it might scar." Jillian says. Then she prods at the scar on his temple, the one that bites into his hairline and probably makes him look like a street child. Will tries not to think about how accurate of a description that is.

Jillian seems to think there's little to none that can be done about that, so instead she asks him to remove his shirt. Will pulls his jacket closer to himself and coughs.

"Why?" He asks.

"I don't have a stethoscope, but I can at least see if you have more superficial wounds." Says Jillian.

Will shakes his head and runs his fingers over Ronan's wings. He enjoys the texture of them; fuzzy leather beating with the pulse of Ronan's heart.

Jillian sighs, but she nods. She allows Will to stand, then leads him to another room, small, but with a couple of cots. They don't look new, but they do look clean, and Will hasn't slept in a proper bed in so long that even these contraptions with metal frames look like the epitome of comfort.

"What—"

"I can hardly send you back out there," Jillian cuts Will off, "Not if you came here looking like that. So stay here. We aren't quite done getting what we need, so you can probably stay until we are. Breakfast is in two hours. You want to be downstairs for that."

Jillian closes the door when she leaves, and Will takes a peek at his pokétch just to have a reference. He eyes the cots, but he doesn't feel like sleeping. Zuzu, Ezra and Adelaide are already all piled up in one of the cots, so Will puts Ronan down on another one, lest one of the others rolls over and accidentally lands on the zubat.

Will looks around the room, pleased when he finds a bathroom, but he quickly exists when his eye catches the mirror.

"You should sleep," Adelaide calls from her place on the cot closest to the door.

"Yeah," Will agrees.

 **{…}**

Two hours later, Will still hasn't so much as laid down on the bed. Whenever he closes his eyes, fire and blood try to attack him, so Will stays wide awake while his pokémon rest. When the others wake up, Zuzu takes the burden of carrying Ronan, and Will says nothing. He doesn't know what to say, and Zuzu doesn't try to talk to him either, so they stay quiet.

They leave the room, and Will falters.

"Kid—?" Adelaide stops when Will puts his fingers to his lips.

The boy looks around, retraces their steps until they're in front of the doctor's office. He opens the door just a tad, and slips inside when he's sure Jillian is gone. After looking around, Will finds what he wants; a bag leather and brown that Will opens until he can slide his hand inside. He feels around, then pulls out a wad of bills, stuck together with a clip.

"Will, what are you doing?" Zuzu asks, clearly nervous, as Will plucks a few bills out of the bundle. Not even most of them, just enough to buy some things when these people eventually leave him behind.

"We need it," Will sniffs.

He puts everything back the way it was and then they all go back outside, this time planning to head to wherever breakfast is being given out. They stick all close together, and the soldiers around them eye them up and down before walking on.

"— _Leave tonight,_ "

Will rounds the corner, and there she is; red hair and red eyes and with barely a hair out of place. She's holding a plate piled with food that makes Will's mouth water. When Will comes into the kitchen-slash-mess hall, she turns to look at him. She doesn't smile, she only looks, and then she makes a quick, calculated motion to signal one of the tables.

"Prepare him something," She orders to the cook, who nods and bends right back over the oven. Then she looks back at Will, "Are you sitting or not?"

Will scrambles to sit on the table she indicated, pokémon around him, and she makes it a point to sit right across from him. Will is vibrating and he doesn't know if it's nervous energy or what, just that he can't stop it.

"I'm Will Pierce," He informs her.

"Mars," She replies, but Will already knew that. "How did you escape?"

Will does a double-take. "Um…"

"The Kanto army. How did you get away?" Mars elaborates. She still doesn't smile, doesn't do anything to try and reassure Will. It reminds Will of Cyrus, but this isn't Cyrus, it's just Mars, and it's a little scary. "Twice, too. You're the kid the boss saved, aren't you?"

Will nods mutely. Then he shrugs. "People were screaming."

He says it as a whisper, and Mars' eyebrow quirks up. "That is to be expected. In any case, we're leaving tonight. We have gathered enough energy as it is, and we need to regroup and count our loses. I'm sure the locals will be glad to see us gone, as well."

When Mars talks, Will remembers Ella, the way her body was nowhere even near her, and Will gags. He covers his mouth with his hand, tries to collect his thoughts.

"Why?" Will asks.

"'Why?'" repeats Mars.

"Why will people be glad?"

Mars squints at him like he's a piece of a puzzle that doesn't quite fit in with the rest. "People have shown little understanding about what we do." She tells him.

The cook puts a plate of food in front of Will, and Will is too hungry to put off the meal for any longer. He digs in and it isn't quite the flavor he had been expecting, but it's still better than anything he's had in months.

"You're helping, though," Will says in-between bites. He divides some of his meal and gives it to his pokémon, who are all as eager as he is. "Right?"

Mars still has not cracked a smile. "Right. But even then, people don't take well to losing energy in their home."

Will argues, insists that he understands that it's so they can fight against the Kanto invaders, and at the end Mars finally seems to come to a decision.

"You may stay here," She says. "We're leaving tonight, but you stay here until you're ready to leave, too."

When Will says he wants to join Team Galactic, Mars shakes her head. "You saw what happened, didn't you? Stay away from Team Galactic."

She still doesn't smile or soften her voice, and it sounds like a threat.

"Okay," Will says.

"Is that a question?" Mars asks. She puts her fork down, her plate is clean.

"What?"

"That 'okay'. It sounded like a question." Mars says.

"Oh," Will shifts in his chair, looks at Adelaide for support, and tries not to react when Ezra clings to his leg. "It wasn't a question. Sorry."

Mars eyes him again, like he's suspicious, but soon gets up from the table and doesn't look back at him. She orders the cook to start packing up, and when she leaves the room, Will can still hear her voice, commanding and strong and harsh.

When the Galactic Forces leave, Mars doesn't look back, and neither do the rest of the soldiers. Mars gives orders, and everyone obeys without question.

It sends a shiver down Will's spine.

 **{…}**

Will finds Alexandra the next morning latched to his head while in bed.

He screams and springs up from the cot. His chest heaves harshly, his hears feels like it's going to explode. A look at his pokétch tells him it's only been maybe thirty minutes, but his pulse is through the roof and afterimages of corpses cling to his eyelids. Will reaches for his head, feels fur, and swats at whatever is up there.

There's a yelp, and the extra weight on his head flies a couple of meters in front of him. Adelaide is on Will's lap, and even Ezra looks poised for battle. Will can't see Zuzu, who chose to sleep at the foot of Will's bed, but Will can hear him growl.

They all relax when they identify the intruder, a pachirisu that blinks up at them while it rubs its head.

"Oh," Will says. "I-I'm sorry, I… you scared me."

"No problem," The pachirisu smiles sweetly, and Will feels this is unfair. His electric pokémon has only just left them, and here is another one. "I'm Alexandra."

The others introduce themselves, too, and inform the pachirisu that Will can understand her. Alexandra is thrilled at the news, and she comes over again, with quick, skittering movements.

"I lived over at the town, but yesterday something bad happened and I got scared, so…"

"That's okay," Hearing Zuzu is a reassurance, even after yesterday, Will realizes. "We… have room for one more, right, Will?"

"Sure? If… If you guys want?" Will says. He doesn't think he can decide anything at this point, so he'll just let the others have their say.

And say they do. Will ends up with one more pokémon by the time he has packed extra food and washed his head on the kitchen sink. He's not sure how everyone decided this would be for the best, but if that's what his pokémon want, Will is not in the mood to argue.

 **{E N D - 0 0 6}**

* * *

 **Pokémon| 6; Deaths| 1**

 **Name|** Zuzu  
 **Species|** Monferno  
 **Nature|** Mild  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Blaze  
 **Level|** 20

 **Name|** Adelaide  
 **Species|** Staravia  
 **Nature|** Timid  
 **Characteristic|** Proud of her power  
 **Ability|** Keen Eye  
 **Level|** 20

 **Name|** Ronan  
 **Species|** Zubat  
 **Nature|** Bashful  
 **Characteristic|** Happily eats anything  
 **Ability|** Inner Focus  
 **Level|** 16

 **Name|** John  
 **Species|** Geodude  
 **Nature|** Lonely  
 **Characteristic|** Scatters things often  
 **Ability|** Rock head  
 **Level|** 9

 **Name|** Ezra {The Magnificent}  
 **Species|** Budew  
 **Nature|** Brave  
 **Characteristic|** Often lost in thought  
 **Ability|** Natural Cure  
 **Level|** 14

 **Name|** Alexandra  
 **Species|** Pachirisu  
 **Nature|** Gentle  
 **Characteristic|** Scatters things often  
 **Ability|** Run Away  
 **Level|** 10


End file.
